


Scenes From A Marriage

by Not_You



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Child Death (past), Domestic Fluff, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Holocaust, M/M, Multi, PTSD, Past Character Death, Past Torture, Polyamory Negotiations, Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Race, Racism, adults using their words, archaic racial terminology, past attempted rape, past imprisonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 10:05:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 41,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a kinkmeme prompt for Magda not dying and running into Charles pre-XMFC.  Even though she's already pregnant with the twins and has some very understandable issues with mutant powers, they get married.  Only for Charles to scoop Erik out of the Atlantic.  Life Gets Complicated.  There is angst, love, sex, and healing for everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Also, I really mean it about the 'archaic racial terminology.' At the time 'colored' (annoying and hurtful and full of the implication of deviance from a white norm as it is) was polite. It's used in this fic within the third-person narrative because the narrative always takes place within a character's POV.
> 
> So yeah, it's an attempt to catch the time, but no one (no one who matters, anyway) is actually discriminating against people of color, because what's a different amount of melanin compared to mutant powers?

1\. Charles almost never eats breakfast at home. He keeps meaning to actually take care of himself like a proper adult, but he has the money to go out every morning and it's good practice, placing the walls of his mental fortress high enough to keep out the cacophony and low enough not to panic in his isolation. Besides, he likes this dark little place, with its plush booths and strong tea. It's a good spot to study, as well as for hangover breakfasts and general lingering. On this chill, misty morning there's a new waitress with dusky skin and brown curls. She's older than he is and her face is lined with pain, but she smiles back when he smiles at her.

Over the course of the next few weeks of breakfasts, he learns that her name is Magda, that pink is her favorite color, and that she doesn't like to talk about the past or the future. She also takes her tea with as much milk and sugar as it will hold, and on the rare occasions he can make her laugh, her eyes are some of the most beautiful he's ever seen. As with anyone, there are also the things he learns despite himself. That her daughter, her precious Anya is dead, and the baby's father is... gone. It's a compact thought, generally safely encapsulated but sometimes shedding bits of itself into what's going on, a metastatic grief. She is also pregnant again, something he only knows from physical activity in the brain. Whatever is there is too early to know anything about, but he frets a little to think of all that time on her feet anyway.

2\. Charles is staring out the window and ignoring his toast and the sullen poached egg sitting on it when a flash of alarm bursts over the walls of his mind and snatches the breath from his lungs. He's on his feet before he knows it because Magda is frantic and faint, snatching at a tabletop that won't hold and thinking _oh god no the baby please not again_ and then gone, syncope from standing too much and almost assuredly not eating enough. She's thin with hardship but solid, and he's lucky he doesn't bash his own head cradling hers, knocked flat on his back. But he's broken her fall, and takes a deep and grateful breath, surprised at the raw and protective terror he feels.

She apologizes for Charles's bruises when she regains consciousness, and he laughs because he has to do that or cry. They're in the back corner, Magda's coat wrapped around her as she sips a mug of warm milk. "Magda, darling. These are some of the most honorably earned bruises I've ever had, and I would say I would cheerfully do it again if I didn't think more than one scare like that would kill me."

She smiles shyly, and it's a ghost of the young girl she was before everything. "I suppose it's selfish, but I haven't had anyone worry about me in a long time." 

She sets her cup down and Charles takes her empty hand and leans in confidingly. "Don't you worry about that, love."

3\. Magda has no idea what she thinks she's doing. She has had a man and a child of her own, and losing them nearly killed her when all the rest of it could not. She and Erik had still been skeletons when he first asked to marry her, and she had laughed at him, asked why on earth he wanted to. It's one of the memories that makes her cry the most, of the serious look on his face when he told her that he wanted to marry her because nothing in the camps had put out the fire in her eyes. Trapped with Schmidt he had only seen her a few times, but he had remembered her, and both left alone in the world they had stuck together until everything got torn apart. 

Now there is Charles, and he is years her junior and an inch shorter and has never gone hungry a day in his life and he loves her. His eyes are a different shade of blue from Erik's, and he is a gentler man, but that sweet and hungry glow is the same. And he has also introduced her to his sister Raven, who is the only family he's got. She seems to think Magda is a project or a pet, but time will tell. For now she sits alone in her little room with her hands on her belly where she's beginning to show and dares to hope.

4\. It's twins, and Charles wishes he could tell her that he can feel them both as they sit here under a tree, taking advantage of an unseasonably warm morning and Magda's day off. She's obviously round now, but after swearing up and down that she was legally married to the father, she is wearing a band provided by the management and keeping her job. Since he can't tell her that it's twins, that the watery beginnings of two little minds are there, he compensates by feeding her whenever he can.

"Are you absolutely certain you can't manage any more, love?"

"I don't have as much room as I used to." She rests her hands on her belly and smiles that mysterious little Magda smile, but does consent to nibble the corner of a watercress sandwich. "Why do you take better care of me than you do yourself, Charles?"

"…I think you know the answer to that, Magda."

"Yes, but why?" She makes a broad gesture at herself and suddenly her eyes are full of tears. Her sudden memory of her husband is so strong Charles can't help but feel it, and is gripped by a sudden fit of anxiety even as he tries to comfort her. He knows nothing about this phantom of Magda's, just that she loved him and was terrified of him. At least she doesn't push him away, and whispers, "Why?" against his shoulder.

"Well…" He has to phrase this carefully, because Magda is not a pet or a charity case and is so very, very much more that it makes everything difficult. "Because I do love you, as we have so been so careful to avoid saying, and because there are some things I should like to do for you that would be much easier and more legal that way."

"…Oh." She sits up very straight, and Charles groans.

"It's not… I need you more than you could possibly need me. I don't think in the least that you couldn't provide for them, and if that was the only thing I was worried about I would just send you massive checks on every holiday, but—" Her sudden suspicion and horror hits him like a brand.

"Them?" She's on her feet in a second, eyes wide and wary. And there must be something guilty in his face, because she turns and runs.

5\. He is like Erik, he is, and the memories come back as she runs, of pipes wrenching out of the ground and strangling people like snakes, bodies impaled on shards and farm implements and kitchenware, Anya's last scream still hanging in the air. Some of them had just exploded, blood ripped out through the skin in every direction at once. The women holding her arms had gone like that, dousing her and crumpling to the ground like dirty clothes. Iron had actually come up out of the earth and run like quicksilver on the ground, jumping down people's throats and hardening again, some of it splashing up to the sky to train down as daggers. And in the middle of it all, her Erik, making a sound that wasn't even human, an agonized roaring and keening that went on and on as the metal killed. Anya's death had frozen Magda and ignited him, and she had run from the screaming and the whirling blades automatically, even though it would have been a blessing to hurl herself onto one.

She had wandered or days, alternating between savage gladness at the horror Erik had made of that little town that had almost been home, and crippling grief. She barely remembered her journey to England. It had just been part of everything, and picking herself up had been nothing but obstinacy. All the world wanted her people gone. The Nazis had wanted her dead and so had Ukrainian peasants and Magda had dug her heels in and worked her hands to bone so she wouldn't have to think and refused to die. All those months ago she wouldn't have even been able to feel this. Betrayal and hurt and the horrible fear, all the ways Charles had just known when to speak and when to stay quiet preternatural in retrospect, every act of kindness now suspect.

6\. "Wait! Wait, please!" He sounds desperate, and Magda is moved even in her terror. She keeps her eyes fixed on him, and he approaches with open palms, as if that's what she's worried about.

"What are you? You and Erik, what are you?"

He sighs. "I am a mutant. That's what it is, a genetic mutation that allows people to do extraordinary things. My only lies have been of omission, and I would rather die than hurt you."

"Can you read my mind?"

 _I could, but I don't_. She gasps, the voice in her head exactly like Charles's speaking voice. _I can sometimes feel your mood, and maybe catch a word or two, but it's like someone else's conversation when one word or phrase is spoken loudly. Please, Magda._ And then it's as if he opens a door inside himself, and she's seeing things he's told her about through his eyes, his soul open to hers in trust she could never match. Retreating back into her own head, she thinks of a slamming door and Charles stays outside it. She takes his hand when he offers it, and they are very cautious with each other for the next month as she gets used to him and to Raven all over again.


	2. Chapter 2

7\. "You said you should like to do some things for me, that day in the park." She's resting with her back against his chest on the couch, Raven out for the night.

"And so I should."

"And that they'd be both easier and more legal?"

"They would be." His hand is resting on her belly, smaller than Erik's but with the same cherishing spread.

"And what would these things be?" She turns her head to place a kiss on his jaw, and he smiles.

"Well, helping you raise the children," and he can say it now because it's been confirmed, and she knows they're both having the same flash of memory, of Dr. Banner's sad, gentle eyes lit up for once with the pleasure of giving good news. "And providing three squares a day plus extra, a roof, an education..." He trails off as she bites his neck. _And you with lots and lots of orgasms_.

"That last one does take the least law," she purrs, and brings his hand to her mouth, pressing a lingering kiss to his palm. Soon enough she's leading him upstairs, as if this is her home. Protests over her delicate condition aside ("Magda, I am not 'just' using my hands and my mouth, this is _mindblowing_ ") he finds himself over her soon enough, panting and whining softly at the way she moans and clings to him. He's carrying all his own weight and his arms shudder as she digs her sharp nails into his back, making him suck in a sharp breath from the pain.

"Ease up, love, just a little."

She does, remembering so strongly it's like the purring voice is right in Charles's ear, saying _Harder, you know I can take it_ just as she heard it.

8\. The wedding is small and quiet, a gathering of orphans. Magda does insist on a church, and if she has to come up the aisle alone she comes glowing, enormous and swathed in softest pink. Raven pretends not to cry and Charles doesn't bother. The priest hasn't really known what to make of them, but his sudden surety that they'll be all right is appreciated.

There is a definite whiff of scandal about the whole affair, but Charles could not care less. With no one who knows anything willing to say a word, it has to die down simply because the gossip columnists can't get much. Magda has a real band instead of her false one and gets bigger by the moment it seems, the twins a steadier and steadier presence, little minds that don't know anything but Magda's heartbeat and watery voices beyond. Babes in arms don't know any words, so of course the twins don't. But he can still tell things about them, one mind quickquickquick and the other a lovely strange shifting thing. He tries to tell Magda about them sometimes, but it just sounds like the poetry he wrote on acid, and she just laughs and strokes his hair.

9\. "I know you're telling her to keep breathing and that you're there and all that," Raven says, "but you should breathe too."

_Almost over_ he tells them both, and reels at a wave of the pain he's sharing with Magda. _so good you're doing so good beloved darling girl_

He's far from the first man to faint at the birth of his children, and he never is sure if it's a telepathy thing or sheer nerves and no appetite and swearing to Magda over and over to protect her. Now she just beams, and says she was in no condition to catch him, but look! And they are beautiful. Bloated old-drunk faces and all, they are beautiful, and by the time the sun is up they are Wanda and Pietro. Raven doesn't know what to do with herself besides pour champagne and hang over her brother's shoulder, staring at the miracle of these tiny pink creatures out in the world and breathing air.

__10\. Magda's anxiety is like nails in his skull the whole way into the base, and he aches for her, her terrible fears of what will happen. Of camps and delousing and death. He's more irritated than he would otherwise be with the brass's hostility, and feels a nasty little surge of gladness when Raven frightens them into silence.__

He strives for greater equilibrium later. Magda doesn't want him to go, but at least they can part without unpleasantness. She kisses him, and snarls for him to stay safe and not to do anything stupid, that her children want to grow up with a father. He rests his forehead against hers for a long moment. "I'll come back, Magda. I promise."

11\. Tearing off his jacket, a distant part of him reflects how good it is that he didn't actually promise not to do anything stupid, and how well she knows him to not even attempt to extract one. He's hypothesized telekinesis before, so the whipping chains are spectacular but not incredible and he doesn't actually know what he's holding until it's in his arms. Metal everywhere all the time all over the world and Schmidt who has to die, and above all the sub pulling the heart out of his body on the strength of his terrible purpose.

And Charles knows this man, oh god he knows he knows he knows. He's the same shape as the one formed by the things Magda doesn't say. He somehow gets him, gets Erik, Jesus fucking Christ, to let go. He has no idea what to do. There is no protocol for this, and all he can do is tell Erik that he's not alone. He's in no state to hear that out of everyone in the world, he has managed to run into his wife's second husband. If that's even legal anymore, good lord. He and Magda have barely talked about Erik, and he steals a sidelong glance at him, both of them wrapped in blankets, Erik staring ahead at nothing.

When pressed (gently, always gently) for a description, Magda had only said he was tall and handsome and had eyes like metal and everything about him like a hungry wolf. Charles must concede every point, and his heart breaks to think of how alone Erik has to have been, hunting Shaw all those years, what felt like the only chance in the world for peace snatched from him.

12\. He puts Erik up in a hotel and goes home, staggering up to Magda where she's feeding Wanda and kneeling at her feet, resting his head in her lap. Her relief washes over him, even though he made sure to tell her he was all right as soon as he was in range. He purrs when she gets a hand free to pet him, and then chokes as all his terror rises like a cloud of locusts.

_Charles!_

_Oh, Magda, my dearest. I don't know how to tell you what happened._

"...Like taking off a bandage, Charles." She shifts Wanda, shushing her as she starts to make a complaining noise and bracing herself for whatever terrible pain the world has inflicted on them. Charles wishes he could just kiss her instead, forget everything.

"In that case," he moves a hand to spot Wanda, "I found Erik." 

To Magda's everlasting credit she does not drop the baby, but she hands her over to Charles, feeling like she's going to faint like she hasn't since there have been Charles and Raven feeding her and pestering her to rest. Memories come rushing back, and Charles has to breathe with her for a long time before she can even begin to think straight. Not all the memories are of fear, and she feels guilty for how much she misses him. Charles just tells her that it's all right, that they can figure it out together.

13\. There's no way Erik can sleep. That bastard has stirred up all his stinking memories, innocent as a child with a stick in a pond. It feels like they'll batter their way out of his skull, and he can't stop crying, everything jarred loose inside him. Loss after loss and the perfect color of Magda's eyes and the taste of bitter herbs on his tongue and Anya, his precious Anya's face in newly-sharpened detail. He buries his head in his hands and just wants it all to stop.


	3. Chapter 3

14\. They've been up all night, and there's been enough tears on both sides to worry them. Charles has said over and over that she doesn't have to do this, but she just shakes her head, tight-lipped. The drive to the hotel is physically and telepathically silent, and they sit in the parking lot for a long time.

"Come on, Charles," she says at last, squeezing his hand.

"Magda--" _you don't have to come you don't have to see him, you don't have to do this to yourself_

"He has a right to know eventually. If he's anything the same, he'd only be angrier the longer we had lied. Just promise me you won't let him hurt anyone."

He leans over the gearshift and hugs her tightly. "I promise, Magda."

15\. He's pacing the room again, expecting Xavier fifteen minutes ago. He's usually deadly patient, but insects on his skin are easier to ignore than his still half-buried memories. Part of him has been numb since they killed Anya, and he does not want it to feel. A knock on his door makes him jump, and he slides his sunglasses over his red eyes again, opening it with the chain on, because the metal is comforting and does at least slow down the process of breaking in. One blue eye looks up at him, glittering with anxiety.

"Good morning, Erik."

And he's about to let him in, but his hair-trigger instincts are what has kept him alive so far, and there's someone else in the hallway. "You said you were coming alone, Xavier."

"Yes, preliminary to meeting the rest of the team." He's practically vibrating, and Erik finds himself unhooking the chain. "Xavier, come in." If there's some spook with a gun to Xavier's head, Erik will be simply delighted to meet him.

16\. Magda is hurting his head again with her suppressed panic, and Charles grits his teeth, stepping into that pool of sorrow and mistrust. Erik has not had a restful night and his head hurts and he's sure some lurking presence with a gun will follow Charles into the room... and touchingly, he's angry with the government, for taking advantage of such a wide-eyed and idealistic man. Charles can feel his powers amping up to defend them both, instant and fearless.

And then it all shuts off when Magda steps in. Erik reels back in a way that would be funny except for everything, and actually crumples to the floor, her name and her scent and a thousand thousand memories rising up like the roaring tide and swallowing Charles's mind by proxy.

"Oh god," he sobs, red eyes visible for a moment as he flings the sunglasses away, burying his head in his arms, "oh god, you should have left me to drown!"

17\. Magda would embrace him. She's realized that much, his pain too like her own for fear or anger to win out, but he crawls and staggers his way to the bathroom, where the door slams and locks itself behind him. She takes Charles into her arms instead, both of them trembling. He sounds breathless in her head, apologizing for subjecting her to this and then suddenly distant. She knows where he is, could follow if she wanted to. The whole building shakes violently, but only once. Charles lets go of her and walks to the door, one hand to his head, the palm of the other resting against the wood. He steps back and Erik flings the door open.

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

"There are people here who have done nothing, Erik. Would you prefer we set you loose on them?" And there it is, the anger again. That he could destroy at least forty people with his mind, bathe her in blood, and somehow expect her not to be frightened. She's intensely aware of her humanity now, of how fragile she is compared with either of them. Erik stops dead, shaking. 

"Magda..." His voice cracks, and he covers his mouth, that fierce look coming over his face the way it does whenever he tries not to cry. Charles quietly goes to lock the door again, turning the bolt.

"Sit down."

He does, on the edge of the bed, and tries to stop shaking. "Magda, I didn't... I... How could you not want them dead for they did to us?!" And because of who he is, because he's probably the one other person in the world who remembers Anya, she sits down beside him and takes his hand. And everything has changed but this hand is the same.

21\. "Magda, I can watch for him if you like. He's not actually very far away."

She hadn't realized she is that afraid that Erik will just vanish in the night, that it was bleeding over so much. "My poor Charles. Come here."

"You seem a little busy to comfort me, Madonna." And it's true, she does have a twin on each side.

"If you want to be self-sacrificing, go see if that bottle is cool enough now."

Charles smiles and comes back with Pietro's bottle, and takes Pietro, hushing him as he squalls in complaint and popping the rubber nipple into his mouth. This is a smaller guilt of Magda's, but he doesn't have to feel it to know about it. "It's not your fault if he needs supplemental nutrition."

"I could probably provide for him, were it only him." Pietro eats more than any baby Magda has ever seen, so much that they've had him examined and all for nothing. Dr. Banner had asked about prenatal nutrition levels, and Magda had had to admit that she had been incredibly run down early on and to let Charles buy crates of the highest quality formula available.

"I don't doubt it, darling. But about what I said before..."

"Please. Don't intrude on him, but let me know if he leaves."

22\. He almost does, time and time again, but he can't help wondering what the children look like, if they've come out with Magda's hair and their father's eyes again, if their baby pink skin is slowly turning to the same soft olive-gold. He cries again that night, but more softly. Rising from his knees alone in all that blood, it had felt like whatever mechanism had allowed him to weep had been ripped out. Now he sobs into his pillow over his poor Anya, poor sweet innocent baby girl, Mama's pet and Papa's darling. 

All this time, even not thinking about her just as hard as he could, the only thing that has let him sleep at night is that those responsible died in just as much terror and pain. Just as much. The ground had been slick with it, and he sometimes counts them over like other people count sheep, tortured expressions a balm for his spirit. With Magda just as gone from him, it had been easy to drop out of everything and devote himself to killing. Better men than Erik had found revenge bitter, but to Erik it is sharply sweet. It had been wonderful to be so focused and now he feels so lost. Just the idea of Magda pregnant again and not being there for her makes him want to crawl under a rock and die. If she really loves Xavier, it's the honorable thing to do now, and if he can't manage that he could at least keep her out of his hunt. But no, Xavier is in it too, and he suddenly wishes Magda's current husband was here with him, so they could beat each other senseless for involving her.


	4. Chapter 4

23\. Charles coos at Wanda on his way out the door, taking a moment and letting her grab his finger and stare up at him with those big, dark eyes that are pure Magda. He beams down at her and kisses her mother on the cheek. "Well, I should've been off five minutes ago. Take care, love, and don't work too hard."

"I should say the same, along with 'don't let Erik punch too many of your teeth out.'"

"I'm sure we can conduct ourselves like civilized people." He kisses her briefly on the mouth and bolts out to the sleek black car that has been lurking for a good ten minutes. She watches it drive out of sight, and feels profoundly alone. She wishes Raven shared her mistrust enough to stay with them, but she had said that watching Charles be a gooey father made her feel sick, and that there wasn't really enough room. Magda will probably never get used to how spaciously her husband and his sister were brought up.

24\. Erik is quiet but present throughout the day. He speaks civilly to Charles and everyone else and lurks at the base long after hours. Charles doesn't really trust him alone, but he wants to see Magda and the twins so badly. They don't have as much time together as they should. With a last, lingering look at Erik, Charles leaves, stumbling over the threshold of this temporary home and sighing with contentment even as Wanda is howling and Magda is changing Pietro with a harassed look on her face.

"Wanda, love. Please, please, you'll deafen us all," he says as he scoops her up, rocking her gently and making her lower the volume just a little. "Come now, dear. It can't be so bad as that." He does use his telepathy to calm the babies sometimes. Magda doesn't really approve, but colic had driven her past her normal boundaries. He doesn't need to touch Wanda's mind now, though. She just wants cuddles, and he's happy to give them to her.

"How was your day?" Magda asks, scrubbing her hands as Pietro fights to flip himself over.

"It could have been worse. Erik and I didn't fight."

 

25\. Charles just smiles when he sees Erik again, as if he doesn't know that he almost left the night before, lingering on the very edges of Charles's sphere of awareness with Shaw's file in his hands and the hunt calling him. He still has the file, but he's here. And he's willing to search for other mutants, and Charles will take what he can get.

"Why'd you stay?" He asks softly when they're alone, and Erik shifts uncomfortably.

"We both know they're mine. The children."

"Oh, without a doubt. You haven't been worrying about that, have you?" The strangled squawk that comes out of Erik's mouth proves that he has. Charles taps his temple. "I knew she was pregnant before she did, and well..." He blushes, feeling ridiculous. "Nothing exactly happened until things were quite well along. They can't possibly be mine."

Erik sputters for a while, finally coming out with, "You can't be that reasonable!"

"Can't I? Yours or mine, they're Magda's, and I love her."

There's not much Erik can possibly say to that.

26\. Naturally, Charles has to ask Magda before testing Cerebro, but Erik is not surprised to find himself climbing the stairs into the thing's heart the next day. If Magda has come this far, she'll let Charles fry his brain. It's his own, after all, and in the interests of domestic tranquility she really has no choice but to trust him with it. She doesn't want to watch, though, and Erik feels strangely responsible. He can't possibly say so to anyone, but he's watching Charles for her. 

He also can't help a jab about lab rats, but it seems like no matter what he does he can't actually make Charles angry. Irritated, certainly, but there's a fondness even to that. Erik has no idea what to make of it, and stays close by until Charles is safely out of the helmet again, giddy and giggly and unharmed, full of the thrill of discovery.

27\. "So both the men I married are off on a mutant-finding roadtrip."

"So it would seem." They're propped up on pillows, Pietro sprawled on Charles's chest, breathing fast even in his sleep, little body vibrating with energy.

"I'll miss you."

"And him, it's all right to say so."

"No more than ever. It's not like I've seen him."

He sighs, taking her hand. "Magda... I don't know if I've ever been around anyone so badly hurt. Even when we met you had more hope."

"And then these two were coming," she murmurs, petting Wanda's fluffy head. "They're a reason to live."

He leans over and kisses her cheek. "They are."

28\. "You tip her; you're the man of the world. I'm just a tweedy academic."

"And you're old before your time." Erik smiles his shark's smile up at this beautiful (mutant) girl, looking every inch the high roller. Settled in their (close enough to private) room, Charles watches Erik operate and wonders if Magda misses his dry humor and casual wickedness. Charles knows he would. And then all that is blasted away for a moment with the revelation of wings.

29\. She's only awake to answer the phone because she's feeding Pietro again, and snatches it up on the first ring so it won't wake Wanda. "Hello?"

"Magda!" And he sounds so silly and jubilant that she smiles.

"Charles, love, isn't it rather late?"

"It is, it is, but it's for the mission!"

"I see." She smiles, picturing him all flushed and smiling and sprawled on some hotel bed. "Did you find her?"

"Yes, and she's coming back with us!" He's beaming all over his face. She doesn't need to be in the same State to see that.

"So have you been celebrating, you hopeless sot?"

"A little, but we were well started before then. She's been working as a stripper, you see. We had to give her a tip big enough for a private dance to talk to her, and that was one bottle of champagne. And then we needed to celebrate our first real success, so that was a second, and then..."

"Degenerates, the pair of you."

"Chronic inebriates." Charles giggles.

30\. Erik is going to die. He has had precisely the wrong amount of alcohol, and not even the sort of wrong to give him a relatively merciful, vomit-aspirating death. He has avoided death for so long and so cannily that he almost forgotten what it is to want it. From the camps through that one extinct exception now kept under glass lest too much examination destroy it, he has always wanted to live. Wanting to die had burned out of him twice, first in Schmidt's office and again as soon as he had something to lose. He had longed for death then, but in the end there had been the hunt, turning him back into that low-running predator that would chew off its own trapped leg and lope three-legged until it could get other blood on its teeth. For years he has wanted nothing more than Shaw's death and the thought of his own, of giving up, had been anathema

But now he can hear Charles through the vent between their rooms, beds head to head on the same wall, and he is going to die of it and wishes the process would just hurry along. The room isn't spinning, he doesn't feel sick, there is nothing to distract him. Only heat all through his body and a dangerous mental softness and this is why he despises champagne. It's as delicate and deceptive as the most unscrupulous woman in the world and thinking about it that way is Not. Helping. It can't still be going on. He can't still be here, tangled up and hard and guilty, eavesdropping not only on someone else's conversation, but one that involves this many soft little whimpers and moans and his own damned wife. And now Charles is whimpering her name, awestruck, and Erik is in hell.

31\. For all her ferocity, Magda is modest. She doesn't wander around naked and she hardly touches Charles in public, and for some reason he has been foolishly expecting this restraint to enter into a late night phone call when he's drunk and horny and both the twins are asleep for once. So when she tells him to touch himself, he can't help a pathetic little squeak. He can't help his instant obedience, either, or the sigh that escapes him. She tells him exactly what to do, as if she's sitting there on the foot of the bed watching him, and he tells her what that thought does to him. Quietly, Erik must be trying to sleep, but emphatically.  
"You can still speak, you're not doing it right," she purrs, and something turns over in his c hest.  
"Oh, Magda."

She chuckles. "You know you like being bossed around."

He would say that he does, but his throat is all knotted up and all that comes out is a whimper. He wants to reach for her mind, but it's not close enough, and he certainly doesn't want an entire hotel woken out of sound sleep by _Any order from you is a pleasure, my queen_.

"I think I like you mute like this," she says softly, and Charles wonders if he'll actually have a heart attack and die right here, drunk with his pants around his ankles, on the phone with his legal(?) wife, making it all that much more ridiculous and sordid. "After all, it's not fair the way you can talk with your mouth full or your throat closed up." He lets out a pitiful, needy whine, because he has never thought of Magda as less. He thinks of her as so much more, older and stronger and wiser. Taller, even, though not by much. It doesn't help that her choice of topic puts him in mind of the last blowjob she gave him. 'Something for the road', had been her choice of words. Because she isn't telepathic she hadn't been able to say much more after that, but her bright, dark eyes looking up at him had been eloquent.


	5. Chapter 5

32\. Erik has spent years roaming the world, and he has not been chaste. Talented whores and friendly farmer's daughters and a pickpocket with a pretty face who had been glad to do a little honest work for his money had all played their part in keeping the nightmares off, and to pour a few pleasant memories into that unfillable pit of misery. He hasn't forgotten a single thing Magda taught him, but in such a short span of time he has forgotten what it's like to care. Finding it again hurts, like anything about him (like everything about him) but the way his heart twists in his chest pulls at something lower, too. 

He hasn't thought about them together, but lying here dizzy and flushed and in the perfect state to use the Reich's gold to buy a whole night, he can't think of anything else. Whether Magda still likes kisses all over her belly and if Charles is willing to lick her as long as she likes. He seems like the type, all soft eyes and softer mouth and eager to please, but he probably can't take the way she grips and claws at his back when he fucks her (granted that he's doing it right, and he'd better doing it right, the bastard), and he gives in and slides out of his pants, slowly palming himself, already hard. Just the wrong amount of alcohol, god. He rolls over and sinks his teeth into his pillow to muffle a groan, wanting to rut against the mattress but not too drunk to care about the noise the headboard would make. 

He wonders how they compare for size as he spreads precome over himself, squeezing brutally. He's glad to be slick enough for this, and realizes that Charles would be like the pickpocket, all soft and loose and sliding in his hand. It's a dangerous thought, and leads to the idea of just slamming him against the wall and kissing him senseless for being such an idiot and having such a pretty mouth, and he smothers another groan, coming all over his hand.

He strips the bed, scrubs the sheet with water, showers, and goes to sleep again fully dressed on the naked mattress.

33\. Erik is positively hostile the next morning, and it seems like it might honestly be personal this time. Then again, he's sitting there with his sunglasses on indoors on an overcast day, and drinking cup after cup of black coffee. Charles himself is only mildly hungover, and wonders if Erik is just susceptible and nursing a murderous headache. He'd ask after it, but the way Erik is holding himself aloof and the tone of the German cursing he had gotten in response to knocking on his door both point to a man better left undisturbed.

After Charles is through picking at his subpar ham and eggs in silence, they head out for the car. Refolding the whole hopeless mass of their giant road map the right way, he offers it to Erik.

"I'm driving," he growls, and Charles slides into the passenger seat. He's willing to navigate to keep the peace, and directs Erik out to one of those terrible suburbs where all the little houses look the same. It takes forever to find the right one, up and down the narrow streets before Charles catches her presence and knows exactly where she is. He directs Erik there, while telling him that the girl seems quite young and to try not to terrify her. He's expecting a snide remark, but just gets a silent nod.

It turns out that Carrie Irwin is going to be twelve next month and that Erik is alarmingly attractive when he's actively being disarming. The girl's mother certainly appreciates it, but unlike his mother is actually concerned. Not only is the child a child, but all she can do is change the color of fabric. Not even forever, just for an hour, and the cloth has to be at least half cotton. She blushes as she displays this useless talent on Charles's shirt, turning it from blue to pink.

"It actually suits you, Charles," Erik murmurs, and smiles sidelong at him in a way that makes him feel forgiven.

34\. In admitting to himself that he wants to fuck Charles, some of the pressure is off. There are still moments where it's completely unbearable and his head spins and he sickens at his own depravity, but he can handle that. Things like this have happened before. He just breathes and lets it pass, goes back to watching Charles. He's never not, these days. It's probably the needy drag of his eyes that worries him the most, that he's always checking the weather by Charles's face. The man is dangerously close to becoming his compass, a position previously reserved for Magda and a blue-eyed little memory whose name he is back to not even thinking on a day to day basis.

Right now he's expounding upon nucleotides, and Erik just sips his beer, watching Charles's mouth move above the rim of the glass. He wonders when Charles will realize that absolutely none of this is sinking in. "...You're not listening at all, are you?"

"Not a bit." Erik sets his glass down, unable to help the smile tugging at his mouth.

"Too bad, it was frightfully interesting." And he wonders if they teach adorable self-deprecation in British boarding schools, feeling a surge of pure fondness that he knows must be too strong for Charles not to notice.

 

35\. "I'm glad." He blurts it out before he can help himself. "That you... that you don't mind me." At least he can blame his flush on the liquor (even if everyone who knows him knows it takes more than this) even if he can't help smiling like a fool. "I was sort of afraid you'd get it into your head to be blood enemies forever. You're very stubborn, you know. Hard-headed." He bites back a giggle, and maybe he is a little drunk. Oh dear. But Erik's mind is hard, hard and smooth like metal.

"So I've been told."

"I asked Magda about you once, and she said you had eyes like cold metal. And you do, you really do."

"Charles, I knew you'd had a few while the boy and I had a our talk, but really. On government money, too." He winks, and Charles does giggle.

"Well, that and some of my own."

"Ah yes, your stipend for having that accent."

"Exactly."

 

36\. "I am glad, you know." 

It's hours and hours later and Erik is so tired, but it's nearly too cold to sleep and he has never liked sleeping in cars. They're only out here because the past hick town is booked solid by some kind of convention and the next one is too far to reach when they're this exhausted. "Mm?"

"I'm glad you don't hate me. For myself, and because it would make things even harder for Magda."

"I would kill you in a second if I thought that making her life easier wasn't one of your primary goals."

"I know, Erik." He sighs, snuggling into his coat. "Damned cold out here, isn't it?"

"It is." He's been colder and so has Magda and maybe he's remembering too loud about how they kept warm in the middle of liberation, because now Charles is talking about sharing body heat and it really is unseasonably cold. They curl up together in the back seat and sleep at last.


	6. Chapter 6

37\. Charles doesn't invade the dreams of others if he can help it. It has happened by accident a few times in his life, but not for such a long time that he's not expecting it at all. Physical proximity makes it much easier, and wrapped around Erik's back they are so close, his face pressed to the nape of his neck in the barely-warm darkness under both their coats and the one blanket Charles had tossed into the trunk as an afterthought. He's having a dream of his own, of wandering through high-ceilinged halls with Raven, both of them children with melting ice cream cones of an impossible flavor, when he wanders into Erik's head without even realizing it at first. 

After all, a door in the Westchester Mansion opening to a low-beamed, firelit cottage is not so unusual, and if Raven is no longer beside him people do come and go quickly in dreams. Magda and Erik are here, painted red-gold by the fire and tangled up in each other. It has the texture both of dream and memory and it engulfs him, love and warmth and lust so strong it makes him dizzy. For an endless moment he's feeling all of it and then he's awake within the dream, ashamed and remorseful and fleeing as fast as he can. There are more graceful ways to do this, but he can't remember them right now and he and Erik are suddenly and violently awake.

"What did I tell you about staying out of my head?" Erik growls, accent thicker than it is day to day.

"I am so, so sorry." He groans, covering his face. They've scrambled to opposite sides of the seat in their confusion, warm nest torn apart, and the whole car is vibrating with Erik's anger. "Please forgive me, my friend. That hasn't happened in years and I most certainly did not intend for it to happen this time."

"You..." The rest of what he says is in German, but Charles has the feeling that it means something very unfriendly.

"I left as soon as I knew where I was!" He wonders if this is the telepathic equivalent of wetting the bed in adulthood. The thought does not help.

Gradually the vibration drops to a hum and then to nothing. "Hmph. I suppose it could have been worse."

Charles nods, heart aching to think of Magda's nightmares and all the pain she and Erik share. "I would never-- I mean, I've gone into Magda's dreams, but only with her permission."

"She lets you into her head?"

"Sparingly." He can't help but smile fondly, thinking of his wife's hard-earned trust.

"...If you betray her trust, I will kill you."

"I know, Erik." He reaches out and pats Erik's arm, startling him into laughter. "Is it really surprising that she could inspire similar loyalty in someone else?"

"No, it's not." He leans close as if to impart a secret, but thinks better of it and pulls back, reaching behind himself to open the door. "The road's straight. Catch up to me." And then he's gone, walking off faster than some people run, disappearing the gauzy morning mist.

38\. Charles isn't expecting him to pick up the same thread days later on a late night drive, eyes fiercely fixed upon the gold radius of the headlight. "The bitch of the thing is that I still want her as much as I ever did." It's apropos of nothing, breaking a half hour of comfortable silence.

Charles yawns, pulled up from a near doze. "Of course you do. I can feel it. I'm continually amazed that you haven't knocked my block off."

"Well, you are providing for her."

"And the children."

"And the children. How blameless that sounds."

"Erik, she was the one who left you. You are many things, but a deadbeat father is not one of them."

"I could have looked harder. Would have, if I'd known."

"You do know I'm not actually trying to keep you away from them, right? If not seeing them starts to hurt more than seeing them, feel free to come 'round." He yawns again. "Any hour of the day or night."

39\. "Magda, love?" Charles is holding the receiver in the crook of his neck, struggling to undo the buttons at his cuffs so he can roll his sleeves up against the syrupy summer heat.

"What have you done, Charles?" She sounds tired and amused, and he suddenly misses her so much he can hardly stand it.

"Well, I told Erik it was all right if he wanted to see the children, but I forgot to specify that it was all right with me."

Magda considers this over the duration of a long silence that makes Charles burn to be close enough to feel her thoughts. "They're his get and he was my husband, he's got a right to it."

"Not if you're not comfortable with it, Magda."

She just laughs at that, and tells him she loves him.

40\. That laugh stays with him, and is probably the main reason he invites Erik in that night. It's been a long day, making sure all the recruits are comfortable, (or as close as can be, with a convict and two colored people surrounded by federal agents) drawing up a new route with Cerebro, and only stumbling 'home' after dark. Charles would hate the house if it didn't have Magda and the children in it, and even with their sanctifying presence it's still a damned ugly little place, with narrow halls and badly-arranged windows and horrifying wallpaper. Charles parks the car and turns to Erik, who has cab fare back to his hotel. "Come in for a bit?"

He can feel a small flash of surprise at the invitation. "...If Magda won't mind."

"I don't think she will." He touches his temple in his silly, habitual way. _Magda, love?_

Finally. Have you eaten? Come in quietly, the children are asleep.

Do you mind if Erik steps in for a drink and the time it takes a cab to get here?

Not as long as he's quiet, too.

Charles assures her that they will be, turning back to Erik, who looks rather bemused. "Come on, then." He gets out and leads the way up the narrow, peeling steps, murmuring, "God, I detest this house." Erik smirks faintly, and is then utterly serious as Magda opens the door, a finger to her lips. She looks tired, but her hair is still up and she hasn't changed into her nightgown. She smiles softly, and leads them on stealthy slippered feet to the kitchen.

40\. The enforced silence is a relief, because this is nearly too surreal to handle, this hideous and hideously American little house full of the scent of Magda's cooking like roses in an abattoir; to say nothing of the woman herself, calm and collected in a little pink house dress. He still has nothing to say when they've reached the cramped kitchen, and just settles himself at the table. Charles kisses Magda's cheek and makes him feel like an intruder, because he knows how he used to greet her with no witnesses, but she turns and smiles at him for the first time in well over a year, and his heart turns over in his chest.

It's unnatural, how peaceful this is, sipping brandy with his estranged wife and his replacement. Charles tells Magda all about the trip, about the recruits and their settling in at the base, and regularly turns to Erik, asking for his thoughts or memories or clarifications. He gives them in what he hopes is his usual voice, skin feeling too hot and too small. He tries not to fidget like a small child and can hardly wait for Charles to actually call him a cab. And then Magda's eyes meet his, and he doesn't mind so much.


	7. Chapter 7

41\. They do fight about Charles going to Russia. It's ugly and Madga breaks dishes and it leaves Charles's sensitive mind raw around the edges. The twins shriek and howl, and he reaches out without thinking, projecting love and safety from a place before words. They quiet, and Magda glares at him, storming out and staying out for a long time. She walks when she's angry, and doesn't make her way back until it's starting to get light out and Charles is sleeping fitfully on the floor by the crib.

"Get up, you stupid man," she says, and shakes him gently.

"Magda?"

"Don't sleep on the floor."

"Bed's not comfortable without you in it."

"Get up, idiot."

"I'm sorry, Magda." He stumbles up, and she sighs, hugging him.

"I forget you how young you are sometimes, Charles. That you can still afford to dream." She tows him to bed and wraps around him once they're under the covers.

42\. Charles looks away from the serpentine barbed wire to Moira. "I'm sorry. My wife will kill me if I leave him."

43\. They're tired and troubled on the flight back, Charles stretched out with his aching head in Erik's lap. He's not sure Erik even realizes that he's stroking Charles's hair, and decides to keep it that way.

44\. Magda has seldom been more uneasy in her life. All night and into the morning she doesn't sleep, and she wouldn't be able to even if Wanda did stop screaming. She cries and cries, howling and batting at Magda with tiny fists when she tries to comfort her. She would think it was colic again if Wanda didn't sound so angry. Finally, desperate, she cries to the heavens that all she can possibly do is go wait at the base, (where she theoretically has clearance) that she can do no more and get no closer.

Miraculously, Wanda is quiet. All at once like a door closing, and despite her deep sense of foreboding, Magda dresses the children and slowly, slowly because she barely knows how, drives to the base. They fall asleep like little angels on the way, as if they don't even know how to scream.

45\. "What the fuck! What the fuck just happened?" Alex is sobbing, and Magda wishes she could reach out to him, but she has a baby on each arm

"I might know. Let's make sure Darwin is all right." They step over the windowsill, and past a few bodies. Nothing Magda hasn't done before, but she holds the twins so they don't have to look. Darwin is sitting there on the grass where Shaw left him, skin gleaming like a mirror, like he has turned his flesh into some bright metal.

"Well, this has never happened before." He sounds drunk.

Alex falls to his knees beside him, hands helplessly reaching out. "Did you-- holy shit, Darwin, are you metal?" He touches that silver face, looking awed and alarmed.

"Looks like it." Darwin blinks silver lids. "Wow. So, are those sparkles on your blasts normal?"

"Hell no." He scrubs at his eyes with the back of one hand. "I don't even know what happened in there." Wanda giggles, and Alex looks over. "She might, though."

 

46\. They both come running, and Magda would leap up to greet them if she weren't weighed down by children. Darwin is exhausted after his strange transformation, asleep with his head on her knee, and Alex is leaning on Darwin. She has Wanda asleep in her arms, and Raven is carrying Pietro, who does not object to being squished between them in a hug.

"Magda, are you all right?" He asks over his sister's shoulder.

"I am, but Angel left with Shaw."

"Who almost killed Darwin with my fucking blast," Alex growls.

Sean pats his arm. "Hey, it was an honest mistake, and Darwin's idea anyway."

Erik prowls the edges of the group, and Magda's heart goes out to him.

47\. The mansion does help her to understand Charles better. It's so vast and opulent and cold, such a loveless place. But it is beautiful, like some cursed palace out of a fairytale. And they have everything they need. There's even an ancient crib in the attic that Wanda and Pietro fit into perfectly, but they only find that after Raven's tour of the place.

It's strange, how maternal she feels toward these kids now. Darwin is still mostly metal and sleeps twenty hours a day, but he's alive and slowly but surely changing from silver back to brown, and that's what matters. All of them are taking Angel's desertion badly, and everyone has nightmares. It's sad how homey that is, how much she is used to nightmares.

48\. It's hard for Erik to sleep here. He prowls the long halls and feels exposed under the high ceilings. At least the furniture is all overstuffed and ancient, and there are a few armchairs in disparate regions that he has claimed for his own. He curls up in them like a cat and breathes evenly and thinks of nothing. It helps, many nights. On others he wanders down to the kitchen, because it's the homiest room in the house and also the home of the liquor cabinet.

He doesn't see Magda until he's entirely too close to escape without being noticed. She's crouching because the spice cabinet is near the floor, so the pan of warming milk doesn't tip him off the way it should. She stands up with the jar of nutmeg, flinches, and then relaxes. He's glad not to be the thing she fears most anymore, whatever happens. 

"Couldn't sleep?" She says, returning to the stove to freckle the surface of the milk. She'll add cinnamon and honey too, and a wave of longing sweeps over Erik, an almost pleasant pain because he would have stayed with her in that little cottage in Ukraine. Magda heating honeyed milk while the baby sleeps is really all he has ever wanted. Years of the hunt had dropped away when he had seen her again, years after liberation. Half-dead she had been beautiful to him, and fleshed out and able to laugh she had stunned him. It had been like being a kid again, his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth and Magda's eyes sparkling in the kindest way even if the joke was definitely at his expense.

"No." He leans against the counter, watching her. She's wearing a white robe over her nightgown, and it brings out the richness of her skin.

"I've made enough for two." He thanks her, and sits down and lets her fetch the mugs and pour, because Magda has always insisted on it. She settles down beside him, and it's almost like none of it has even happened, that it's Anja asleep upstairs. He warms his palms on the sides of the cup, and takes slow sips. "I'm glad you and Charles are friends."

"He told me the same thing." He lets a wave of guilt pass through him, thinking of his desire for Charles, and scalds his tongue with milk. "I told him I'd kill him if he didn't keep your best interests in mind. We agree on the most important things."

She smiles sadly, and they finish their drinks in silence before Erik gets up to wash the pan and cups. Magda kisses his cheek without a word and pads off upstairs again while his head is still spinning.

49\. Charles needs his rest, but being bullied awake for sex is something he can live with. His shields are low with sleep and dazed lust, and Magda's thoughts melt into his mind as she takes him into her body. He's not sure which one makes him want to moan louder, and stuffs the pillow into his mouth instead. Her hunger is strong and a little guilty, and he knows why before he's awake enough to remember that he shouldn't let that knowledge in. She wants Erik, and he has the craziest urge to just say Me too, but he doesn't. He tries to untangle his mind from Magda's, melted and distracted as she rides him. She's panting softly and tightening hard around him, and Charles is able to let go and just whimper softly, letting her use him.

50\. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

"No. No, I can't. I'm sorry, I can't shoot anybody point blank, let alone my friend." 

"Oh come on, you know I can deflect it! You're always saying I should push myself."

"If you know you can deflect it, then you're not challenging yourself! ...Besides, Magda would kill us."

Erik groans in exasperation, but takes his gun back when Charles hands it to him.


	8. Chapter 8

51\. The first time Erik holds the twins is two nights later. He dreams of them in Schmidt's laboratory, screaming on the table, and shakes himself awake. He sits up with his heart beating so hard it hurts his chest, gasping like a dying fish. He rubs his hands over his face and can't tell if it's wet with sweat or tears. Before he has time to think better of it he's up and creeping to Charles and Magda's room. With an assassin's stealth he makes he way in, and stands by the door for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the faint moonlight before making his way to the crib.

The children are there, of course. Two little bundles fast asleep in this room full of the scent of clean linens and the people that sleep on them. Seems like Magda still sprinkles her sheets with whatever floral scent she can get. He used to buy her rosewater when they could afford it. He knows he shouldn't be here, but it's soothing. It should terrify him to trust Charles, to find his proximity so comforting, but right now he needs the comfort too much to doubt. The dream is too close, too raw and near truth. After all, Shaw does know the children exist, and whether he knows they're Erik's or not, the only other real suspect is Charles. He remembers Anya screaming and shudders, eyes welling up with tears.

Pietro makes an imperious noise, shocking him out of the memory. It's all very well about Anya, he might as well be saying, but I'm hungry now, dammit. Erik reaches down and scoops him up, rocking him just a little, which makes him quiet down. And then his sister opens her huge, dark eyes and waves chubby fists in irritation at there being cuddles in the room and none for her. Erik shifts Pietro and picks her up too. The warm, trusting weight of them is hauntingly familiar, and he stands there for a long moment before Pietro starts to fuss again. There's nothing for it now but to make his silent way down to the kitchen and warm two bottles of formula. The bottles are unfamiliar, but the children know how to use them. 

Since Wanda seems better able to wait, he rests her on his chest while Pietro nestles in the crook of his arm, guzzling away. He stares up with Erik's eyes, the fuzz on his head nearly white. He seems to be making his mind up about his prodigal father, with a sterner look than one would suppose a baby could give. Erik waits him out, and guesses he has been found acceptable when Pietro doesn't vomit down the back of his shirt at the conclusion of the meal. Wanda is not so restrained, though she does seem about as repentant as an infant can be. He wipes her tiny mouth with his sleeve, and puts both of them into an improvised cradle of throw pillows so he can pull off his soiled shirt.

 

52\. Charles knows the babies are fine the second he's awake. Any real distress from either of them can pull him out of a dead sleep, but he still figures Magda would prefer to have them where she can see them. Feeling around he finds them asleep again, but downstairs. He throws on a robe and goes to investigate, finding Erik dozing on the sofa, babies sleeping on his bare chest. He looks younger this way, and Charles's heart aches to think of how much he must have loved his firstborn.

Erik? He doesn't want to startle him. Almost doesn't want to wake him at all, but Magda will worry and Charles knows firsthand the state Erik's back will be in if he passes the night where he is. There's a confused flash of dream fragment, and then Erik is awake, watching him.

"I'm sorry if I worried you," he murmurs.

"I always know if they're all right, but it would probably be best to have them back in their crib before Magda wakes up."

"Probably." He sits up very carefully, cradling the twins, and Charles follows him upstairs, watching the sinuous muscles in his back and longing to press his lips to the pale, scarred skin there.

53\. Charles is extremely glad that training takes up so much of his time. The mansion has always seemed enormous, far too big for however many people one puts in it. But now somehow it's too small, Charles and Magda and Erik all too close. He hates his powers more than he has in years, for the memories and dreams he can't help but glean, the little flashes of desire from both of them. They want him and they want each other and he's burning in a way he hadn't since puberty. Closing his eyes for a moment over breakfast he can see every inch of their contrasting skin lit up gold by firelight. When Magda catches Erik's wrist to keep him from burning himself on a hot pan he can see a glimpse of their first time together, of Erik's smile as Magda guides his hands.

He can't help but croak a little as he asks for someone to pass the tea, but hopefully it just sounds like thirst. Alex obliges him. He's started eating with the rest of them again, since Darwin is doing so much better, and Charles has a moment of respite from his own problems to be happy about that. He pours himself another cup and nearly spills milk all over himself at a flash of formless lust from Erik.

 

54\. Charles is letting his students make what they will of Erik suddenly being involved in infant care. Now that he has held the children once, he can't seem to stay away. He can feel Magda liking that, and feeling guilty for liking it, and sometimes it seems like the weight of history between them will crush him. 

Now Erik is minding both twins while Magda bakes a cake simply because she has the ingredients and a houseful of growing young people to eat the finished product. The sweet smell wafts throughout the house, and Erik walks in circles with the twins, singing softly to them. It sounds like something from a cabaret and the lyrics are probably violently inappropriate. Softened for the babies it's soothing, though. Charles is just coming through the door and reaches out to them, feeling an almost frightening surge of love at the touch of their sleepy little minds. 

He ducks into the kitchen first, giving Magda a sweaty hug that makes her wrinkle her nose and tell him to go bathe (and she used to say that to Erik when he got home from work and Charles doesn't mean to know this but both of them think and remember so loud, so burningpureclearexquiste) and then wanders out past Erik, who is softly telling Wanda that she is the most beautiful baby in the world while she blinks up at him, each one longer than the last. Pietro reaches for Charles, always more wakeful than his sister. Charles eases him out of Erik's arms and cuddles him close.

"I didn't know you sang."

Erik solemnly winks at him. "I am a man of many talents, Charles."

 

55\. "I can't take it anymore." Charles doesn't even realize he has spoken aloud until Magda looks over her shoulder at him.

"Charles?"

He takes a deep breath, gritting his teeth. "I need to watch you together."

Magda doesn't ask what he means, just goes back to brushing her hair its hundred strokes for the night. "Let me think about it."

"Of course, Magda." He's suddenly ashamed of himself, and goes to kneel beside her chair, resting his head on her knee. "I'm sorry, I can't believe I actually said that."

"I can. It's actually something of a relief."

"It's hard for me to be sure how much my telepathy is amplifying the tension."

"There's plenty of tension, Charles." She switches sides, seal-brown curls gleaming. "It's like the time before a thunderstorm."

"...And thunderstorms turn Erik on and _I can't help but know that_. I'm so sorry, Magda. I haven't had this little control since it was thirteen."

She pauses to reach down and stroke his hair. "I know you better now, dearest."

56\. Erik isn't sure what's going on, but it's crawling all over his nerves. Both of them are watching him. And at first he thinks it's because they don't trust him with the twins, but then they actually go out to dinner and leave him in charge of them even over Raven, who flings her arms around his neck in delight that she doesn't have to babysit.

It's actually a pleasant evening. He brings the babies to see Darwin because they adore him and he's strong enough to sit up and hold them now. Wanda giggles and pats his face, all the skin there back to normal. "That's right, baby girl," Darwin coos. "I don't know what you did but I know you did something, and thank you."

"Good of you to thank her," Erik murmurs, corralling Pietro with his feet as the baby crawls on the rug. "Alex hasn't bothered."

"Alex?"

"Don't play dumb." He scoops Pietro up and puts him on the bed where he tries and fails to scale Darwin, occupied for at least a few minutes. "He's desperately in love with you."

"...So what about you and the professor?"

"What about us, indeed."

"See, I thought you were just friends, and the tension was 'cause you wanted his wife."

Erik chuckles. "There's much more to it than that."

"And you don't feel like sharing."

"And I don't feel like sharing."

"Hey there, careful." Darwin keeps Pietro from falling off the bed, making him squall at being thwarted. "...I have noticed that Magda's kid has your eyes."

"Have you, then."

"I don't think anyone else has." He cuddles Pietro, telling him to hush his fussing. "And I'm not saying anything."

"You're a philosopher and a gentleman, Darwin."


	9. Chapter 9

57\. The watching keeps up after that. Every time he looks up he sees eyes, bright blue or the color of black coffee, following his every move. He throws himself into training because he can't do anything else. And Raven is eying him, which just adds to the pressure. When he touches himself it's rough and vengeful, and he projects as hard as he can, hoping to reach Charles and unsettle him. To make him feel like Erik does.

 

58\. Erik wakes up a few mornings later and moans. There's a thunderstorm coming. He can feel it in every cell of his body, the energy building in the clouds and tingling across his skin. He's just so sensitive on days like this. Every touch lingers and spreads, and he feels heavy and warm the way he does after smoking hashish. It's hard to think, and he hides himself away from the kids because he doesn't know where his boundaries are just now. He takes a long, hot shower because he can, appreciating the luxury for what it is He practices fine control with small objects in his room, and stares out the window, watching the weather until he can't stand it anymore and has to get out. The peals of thunder are coming closer and closer together, and he climbs onto the roof, watching the flicker of distant lightning.

Soon enough the sky is black, and rain pounds down. He's soaked to the skin in a minute and a half, and everyone else flees indoors. He stays on his high perch for a while, buffeted by wind and feeling the lightning in his bones. He knows when and where it's going to strike, and his whole body sizzles. Absently, he sucks his first finger into his mouth, only realizing what he's doing after a long moment of stroking his tongue and staring at the blurred horizon, smelling ozone. He snorts in derisive amusement at himself and climbs down to an upper window, levering himself over the sill and back inside. He hadn't realized how loud the rain was until now, partially insulated from it. He closes the window behind him, and hauls off his saturated sweatshirt and the t-shirt beneath it. He should be cold, but he feels warm all over. Flushed.

He nearly jumps out of his skin when Magda touches his arm.

59\. Magda falls back through her memory like stepping off a cliff. This moment is so like another one, from before. Before Anya, before the camps, before everything. She had been ten, which would have made Erik eleven, and it had been a grey, overcast day with the faintest rumblings of distant thunder. She had taken Erik's pale hand in hers just this same way, and led him around a corner into one of the crooked little alleys between the old houses. At that age she had only kissed him, but it had felt as enormous and breathtaking as this does now, their hearts beating like the hearts of captured birds. He watches her with those wintry eyes in just the same way, captivated and elated. She knows what he's thinking as a shadow passes over his face, both of them paused in the bedroom threshold.

"Charles?" He keeps his voice down, because the twins are somehow sleeping through all this thunder, and the room is only lit by one little lamp.

"Wants to watch," Magda murmurs, and smiles at the way Erik's eyes widen. Charles has dragged an armchair up to the bed, and smiles shyly at them as they come closer, eyes gleaming in the dim light. He looks very young indeed, wrapped in a dressing gown with his feet tucked up under him.

"Is that so, Charles?" He murmurs, half hard already.

"Yes." Charles is trembling slightly, and Erik smiles at him, stroking his hair and then standing back to strip out of the rest of his wet clothes. Charles stares, and whimpers softly. He doesn't reach out to touch, even though Magda knows he wants to. So she does it for both of them, the pads of her fingers lightly following new scars and old. He stands still and lets her, whispering her name when she wraps her arms around him, pressing against his back as her hands map his chest. She gently bites his shoulder, fingertips circling his nipples and making him grit his teeth against a moan, head tipped back.

60\. Charles wonders why he has done this to himself, squirming wretchedly in his seat. And then Erik is unbuttoning Magda's dress with slow and touching reverence and Charles can barely remember how to breathe. Erik touches her tentatively, running his palms down Magda's sides and tentatively cradling her breasts. They're tender and heavy these days, and Erik is incredibly gentle with them, whimpering as Magda wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him, arching into his touch.

The kiss is soft and sweet at first, and Charles catches a glimpse of the powerful memory they're sharing, of grey stone behind Erik's back and the soft touch of lips on lips for the first time. And then both of them are intensely in the present, demanding and hungry. Erik's hands slide down to wrap his arms around her waist and pull her closer, and she purrs, biting his lower lip. It looks painful, but Erik just sighs and melts against her. His cock rubs lightly against her belly and she lets go to murmur something in his ear. He smiles softly and replies, pulling her with him as he stretches out on his back on the bed. She straddles him and kisses him again, his cock jutting up behind her and Erik moans softly, both of them murmuring to each other in a mix of Yiddish and Romanes, hands making a tender catalog of each other's bodies.

 

61\. Magda is thicker and softer with another birth, but her skin is as perfect as ever, smooth and sleek. She's a little paler with more time indoors and under cloudy British skies, but she is wonderfully healthy. She strokes his hair and favors him with that enigmatic little smile, and then leans down, her belly silky soft where it touches his, her hard nipples slowly trailing over his face as she hisses softly, painfully sensitive. When the sweet brown peaks brush across his mouth again and again, he realizes what she wants and blushes. He's not certain what it says that fucking in front of another man is fine, but that suckling embarrasses him, but either way he wraps his lips around her, careful, careful to keep his teeth away from her tender skin. She moans softly and cradles his head. He can feel her slick wetness against his pubic hair and whines when she starts to rock just a little.

62\. They're perfect together, and Charles doesn't think he could look away if a bomb went off. Erik is so dangerous and so completely in Magda's power. His hands cradle her hips, and he's flushed more with shyness than lust, eyes innocently closed, the same long lashes as both his children. All three of his children, and Charles knows without meaning to that he shared milk with Anya too. Charles can see the moment it lets down, hear it in the soft little noise Erik makes. He shudders, and bites his hand to stifle himself as Magda slides back, rubbing slowly along Erik's cock, which is bigger than his own and he can't even be envious. He doesn't understand the soft words tumbling from Magda's lips, but he can tell they're encouragement as she grinds against Erik, whimpering softly.

"On your back, beautiful," Erik whispers, and helps her shift, stroking an errant lock of hair out of her face with infinite tenderness. Magda looks up at him and smiles, glowing. Erik kneels between her legs and runs his hands over her, luxuriating in how soft her skin is, leaning down to nuzzle her belly and cover her in soft kisses. He purrs when she reaches down and guides his head, leading him to kiss her hipbones, the undersides of her breasts, just above her navel. Charles whimpers, and Erik pauses for just a moment, glancing over at him. His eyes are so sharp. Charles shudders, and wonders for an endless moment what Erik sees on his face. And then he turns back to Magda, inevitable as a flower following the sun. 

She pushes him down, thighs opening and settling over his shoulders like they were made to go there. They've lapsed out of English again, but some things are universal. She gasps and whimpers and moans, hands tugging at Erik's hair as she writhes to get him just where she wants him. He makes a quiet, needy sound, rutting against the bed a little as he works faster and faster until Magda shudders and bites the pillow to muffle a cry, coming. Erik laps her through it and growls, nuzzling the spot where her leg meets her torso, breathing in her scent. Magda shudders and strokes his hair for a long moment, and then he's licking her again, making her gasp. His hands slide up her body to cup her breasts, and Magda puts her hands over them, melting against his mouth. Charles swallows hard, and finally frees his cock, trying not to whimper too loudly. He's so hard it hurts, but he can't touch himself yet.

63\. As far as they know Magda is one of those women who don't conceive as long as they're nursing, but it's better to be safe than sorry, and after gorging himself on the taste of her and forcing her through another climax, he takes the condom Charles offers him. Their fingers brush and it means far too much. Magda watches them, eyes bright and drowning deep, and Charles shudders. Smiles, and sits back.

"Please, Erik. You know how I hate to be selfish."

He laughs, rolling it on carefully. "You're generous, my Magdalene. Always have been."

"Either way, come to me." She reaches for him, and it's the easiest thing in the world for Erik to let her pull him into her embrace. He kisses her again, and nuzzles her neck as he arranges himself in the cradle of her hips, her knees rising and squeezing his sides, holding him close. Erik moans quietly, and strokes his tip over her, once, twice, a third time that makes her whimper and squirm.

"Fuck, Magda. You're so wet for me." He ruts against her clit just a little, and she groans, clutching at his back and then throwing her head back as he slides in slow and easy. There's a sudden tightness in his chest at the feeling of her warmth around him, and he kisses her again to try and keep from crying. She moans and then they're speaking Romanes again, and she's telling him that it's all right, that she's got him and won't let him go. He sobs, and sets up a slow, deep pace, pressing his face to the side of her neck. She tells him that she's missed him, and how good he feels inside her, losing coherence as he speeds up, fucking her harder. He doesn't even have to think about using his powers to keep the headboard from smacking into the wall. It just happens as Magda clings to him and moves with him, squeezing him mercilessly, strong body pulsing around him. She digs her nails into his back, hesitant at first and then full strength as he groans quiet and broken in her ear, the feeling shooting through his entire body and making his cock twitch. He can feel Charles's eyes on his skin like light through a magnifying glass, and he knows that's part of what pushes him over the edge, grinding into Magda like he wants to climb inside and sobbing into her hair.

He's boneless afterward, stupid and loose and hazy. Magda is stroking his hair and then easing him off, just to the side as the mattress dips with Charles's weight. He whimpers quietly, and Erik can hear another condom packet tearing open. He wishes he had the energy to open his eyes, but he can hear Charles's quick and desperate breath, and feel the feverish heat of his skin as he plunges into Magda, letting out what would be a loud moan if he wasn't muffling it. Less than a minute of desperate bucking and he lets out a low whine and shakes himself to panting stillness. Magda purrs, and outside the storm moves on.


	10. Chapter 10

64\. Magda wakes to Pietro's preliminary noises, the little grunts and snufflings that mean that soon he'll be squalling for food. He flails his tiny fists as Magda extricates herself from between her men. Erik makes a noise uncannily like his son's as Magda escapes his grasp, and she smiles softly, stroking his hair. He subsides and she wraps her robe around herself, scooping Pietro up. He latches on immediately, staring up at her with Erik's pale eyes. Wanda is still asleep, and Magda smiles.

"Hungry little creature," she tells him in her own language, the language she almost never speaks but will always remember. He makes a little cooing noise as if he understands, and devotes himself utterly to his task. Magda stands in the soft, golden grey light of a barely-clouded dawn, and studies Erik and Charles as they adjust to her absence. Charles seeks warmth the same way a cat does, and wiggles his way over to Erik, humming softly when he presses against him. Erik has always been warm, and Charles cuddles close, tucking his head in under Erik's chin like it belongs there.

65\. Charles wakes slowly, feeling syrupy and happy for reasons that escape him at first. And then he realizes that the smooth skin he has his face nuzzled into isn't Magda's. Not soft enough, and it smells like Erik. Still, that's nice. He purrs, and presses closer, because Erik is warm and firm and… He sits up suddenly, looking around for his wife.

_Magda? Dearest one?_

He can feel her amusement in response, and knows without being told that she's in the kitchen with the twins, fixing herself some breakfast since no one else is up. She projects her full-body contentment, and there's only a small edge of guilt. He supposes it helps that she is… probably still technically married to Erik, but either way, they are both her husbands, not friendly and lascivious strangers. As much fun as that can be. Charles chuckles softly, and washes her in love because she's there and he can, and then washes himself in water and goes down to help manage the twins. Looking at them today it's easier to see Erik than ever, and the surge of love he feels for his friend takes his breath away. He doesn't consciously project, but Magda seems to feel it anyway, giving him a fond and exasperated smile.

"Was he awake when you left?"

"No, but—ah, there he is." _Good morning, Erik. We're all perfectly fine and in the kitchen, come down and join us._

He does, prowling in like a panther, damp hair slicked back. Charles can feel Magda's amusement at his fastidiousness, and the ache in her heart at the coolly elegant edge his hunting years have given a natural tendency. He pauses, pale eyes flicking from one to the other, a simple white t-shirt pornographic over his moist skin. In the end he elects to kiss Magda, chaste and full of promise. He pauses for a moment, holding Magda and wanting to kiss Charles so badly that he actually feels the touch. Magda murmurs something in Romanes and Charles doesn't need to understand the words to grasp the import, because Erik leans over and kisses him too. The sudden, swooning flare of arousal at actually doing this at last, not dreaming or imagining or telepathically receiving makes him wonder if his heart is actually going to stop. His knees go a little weak, and he clutches at Erik for support. It's not the first time he's kissed another man, but it's undoubtedly the best.

66\. Charles supposes it's cruel to find so much amusement in Magda being angry with Erik, but to see such a guarded and dangerous man employing what can only be described as puppy eyes in a bid to escape his wife's wrath is just too absurd.

"Would you do such a thing to Pietro?" Magda snaps, cradling her son protectively.

"Madga, _gindele_ …" He raises his hands in a placating gesture, tones incredibly soothing.

Magda narrows her eyes at him. "Don't you pour any honey for me, Erik Magnus Lensherr. You could have killed that boy today and you know it."

He smiles, looking sly and guilty and very, very young. "But I knew he would fly, dearest."

67\. "Would you mind? If I--?" Charles makes an evocative gesture by one temple, and Erik barely shakes his head, still panting. Charles closes his eyes for a moment to gather himself, and then they're open again, gazing into Erik's. The world around them recedes into the distance of a deep reverie, and they are both drowning in the same moment. Lantern light and Anya's big blue eyes as she laughs up at him, safe in his arms. It's a time he tries not to think about, because it's so close to the end, so close to the cruelty of her life lasting not even two precious years. But now he can see the memory for what it is, unfiltered by rage or sorrow. His girl is dead, but she will always be here outside of time and enshrined in memory, loving him.

Back in the present, Charles wipes away tears and Erik swallows hard. "What did you just do to me?" He whispers. It's more plaintive than he wants it to be, but there's a pain in his heart like thawing frostbite and he can feel tears of his own welling up.

Charles comes closer, shaking slightly and leaning on the wall beside Erik, resting a hand on his shoulder. "I accessed the brightest corner of your memory system." He takes a deep breath, resting his head on Erik's shoulder. "A very beautiful memory, Erik. Thank you."

He turns his head to press his face into Charles's dark curls. "I didn't know I still had that," he murmurs, arms wrapped around Charles's waist.

"There's so much more to you than you know." He raises his head and kisses Erik deeply, projecting the rest of his words about Erik's potential greatness into Erik's mind so he won't have to stop touching him. When he stops to breathe at last, he hugs Erik tightly, saying, "Now try again," into his ear.

Erik does try again, tears on his face and a strange singing inside that he hasn't felt since… since before Anya's murder, or before the camps, since either phase of his life when things were honestly right. He realizes that he feels that way again, and the joy nearly breaks him. The dish turns, and he laughs, sinking onto the wall top again and grinning from ear to ear as Charles slaps him on the back.

And then Moira is hanging her head out the window, yelling that that the President is giving his address. The news is about as dire as Erik has been expecting, and he just advises the others to rest before going for a walk to clear his head.


	11. Chapter 11

68\. Magda doesn't want to sit here and listen to them argue. Peace may be an impossible dream for Erik and a banner to wave for Charles, but for her it's a quiet place to mend her children's clothes, and it exasperates her than in all their grand schemes they miss the small things that hold life together.

There are two very small things that they will never forget, however, and so she leaves the twins on the sofa, cuddled up in a crib of cushions, everything too firm for them to smother, and quite secure against their rolling off in their sleep. Charles and Erik are deep in their discussion, chess game forgotten, when Magda slips away.

She could have more time to herself if she thought to take it, but she loves her babies, and her foolish men, and all the children underfoot. Sean can't so much as sew on a button, and efforts to teach him take up some of her time. Raven needs reassurance, she makes a point of talking to Alex every time he starts to look too brooding, and Darwin is still a bit stiff and appreciates hot soup and tea, both of which seem to help. Tonight she takes a long walk and smiles to think of how similar she and Erik can be. Magda usually doesn't find any cause to go to the lab, but making a long loop back she sees that the lights are still on, and goes to check on Hank. For all Erik's talk about getting rest, she's sure none of them will sleep well tonight.

She pauses at the door, catching a glimpse of Hank sitting and working in a circle of light before she pads in, wary of the delicate and dangerous machinery around her. He nearly jumps out of his skin when she calls to him, fumbling with a loaded hypodermic in guilty haste.

"M-Mrs. Xavier! Uh, hi. Can I help you?"

"You can call me Magda the way you call my husband Charles, you know." She finds a second chair and sits down, because Hank is actually trembling a little, and the liquid in the syringe is an unwholesome green. "What are you doing?" He hems and haws and squirms and finally explains, telling her about his conversation with Raven and his desperation to look normal and on and on. She listens patiently, and then slaps him across the face. Just a little one, to be certain she has his attention. "Hank, you're a good boy and a very clever one, but right now you are being very stupid." He stares at her wide-eyed, one hand to his cheek. "First you tell the girl you love that she is not beautiful the way she is, which is always the stupidest thing." Hank flushes miserably, and nods. "And secondly, we will talk about looking normal." She takes his hand from his face, and compares it with her. "You see the color I am, do you not?"

"I do, ma'am."

"And the color you are. In so many places, you will be better treated because you are fair. You are not a woman who has to hide her beauty to stay safe when she walks abroad, and you are not a black man like Darwin. You are 'normal' everywhere you go as long as you keep your shoes on. Who else is so lucky?" He stares at her for a long moment, and then starts to cry. She takes him into her arms and strokes his hair. "It is always hard to hide, but better to hide your body than change it." Hank nods and sniffles, and she sighs, looking over at the syringe again. "…Have you even tested that?" When he just shakes his head, she wants to slap him again but soothes him instead, because he is sweet even if he must be so silly.

69\. Erik is tired when he goes back to his own room. He doesn't so much want to sleep alone tonight as need to, and he stops in the doorway, shocked to see Raven in his bed. He doesn't show it. He has so many years of experience in not showing things.

"Well. This is a surprise."

"The nice kind?"

"…Get out, Raven. I want to go to bed." He goes over to dresser, arranging things that don't need arranging. "My life is far too complicated. And you're too young for me."

"What about now?"

He turns and sees Emma Frost and wonders how Raven can be to blind to her own beauty. "I prefer the real Raven." She turns back to her blonde self. "I said the _real_ Raven." Shyer now, she flickers to blue. He smiles. "Perfection."

"Could you pass me my robe?"

"You don't have to hide." He picks up the robe and sits on the edge of the bed. "Have you ever looked at a tiger and thought you ought to cover it up?" She shakes her head and smiles shyly.

"No…"

"You're an exquisite creature, Raven." He brushes her hair back from her forehead, gazing into yellow eyes. "All your life the world has tried to tame you." He leans in and kisses her forehead. "It's time for you to be free."

She beams at him, and leaves without her robe and in all her blue scaled glory. Erik smiles, and then grimaces to think about what has to happen tomorrow, and everyone they might lose.

70\. Charles kisses his wife and children goodbye, and is tempted to force Erik to do the same. He doesn't, just locks eyes with her for a long moment and just touches each twin, feeling how warm and alive they are. And then it's down to the lab, where Hank has left them a note. Magda had mentioned her conversation with him, and Charles laughs to see how tumbled about the place is. Hank has been testing his acrobatic capabilities, it seems. The suits are another surprise, but silly as they are, they will provide protection.

At the hangar they finally see the man himself. He looks different today, and it's hard to place just what it is. There are yellow striations in his eyes that Charles is starting to suspect were there all along, though, and he moves more fluidly. He seems thicker and heavier somehow, but also more graceful. Charles smiles softly, and tells him how proud he is of him.

71\. Erik stands in the sand of a new world, feeling muffled and remote as he simply raises his hand and stops the missiles. It's so easy just to hold them where they are, and then to flip them over in the air. It's as easy as spinning the coin always was. Easy and soothing. Yes, they should go back to where they came from. Bring their payload of death home to their foolish masters and sink whatever remains to the bottom of the sea. And then Charles is clutching his arm, tears in his eyes. There's still that muffled feeling, and he hadn't realized just how much Charles's telepathy has become the background radiation of his mind.

"Erik, you said yourself we're the better men. This is the time to prove it. There are thousands of men on those ships, good, honest, _innocent_ men—" He stops, and Erik may not be able to feel his mind, but he can see the wheels turning behind those big blue eyes as Charles remembers who he's dealing with. "Erik," he whispers, " _please_. Don't do this. Don't do this to Magda."

Every last missile falls from the sky.

72\. It's Azazel who takes them back. Dazed and spent, they have no choice but to trust him. All linked by clasped hands, they reappear on the mansion's lawn, as if none of today has even happened. There's an awkward, crowded moment when they all look at Angel, but she just holds on to Azazel and Janos and disappears again. Charles's heart aches, and looking up at Erik he feels something like vertigo, because if losing Angel again hurts, Erik would be… not everything, he would still have Magda and the children, but they would all be wounded together, heart's blood pouring out from the place where Erik ripped himself away. But it hasn't happened, and only now can he acknowledge that he was expecting it. His eyes well up with tears, and he takes a deep, shaking breath, grasping Erik's arm without thought.

Erik just stares up toward the house where Magda and Darwin are just now visible at the door, and murmurs, "We're home," sounding awestruck and as dazed as Charles feels.

 _Yes, my friend,_ Charles tells him, _we are._


	12. Chapter 12

73\. Magda doesn't know what to do with good fortune anymore. Having Charles, Erik, and all the children return essentially unharmed is almost embarrassing, and definitely too good to be true. She busies herself with first aid rather than think, taking care of everyone's injuries with steady hands. Erik is holding Pietro, Charles cuddling Wanda close to his chest, and the children are all talking over each other. They're so excited by Erik's display of power even as it sends a chill down her spine. Still, he was merciful. She studies him out of the corner of her eye, seeing his face bent down over his son's and one tiny hand reaching up to pat his cheek. He looks almost like he did with Anya, and that's what finally makes her start crying. She covers her face with her hands, sits down on the first available chair, and doesn't get up for a long time.

74\. Charles isn't at all surprised when Erik slinks into their room that night. He knocks so quietly that it could almost be the scratching of a cat, and cracks the door just an inch, one eye glimmering in the shadow.

"Come in, Erik," Magda says, and Charles knows that is one of the ways they both like her best, tucked up comfortably in bed wearing a simple white nightdress and her hair in two plaits like a young girl instead of the wise and battle hardened woman she is. Erik obeys her as meekly as ever, and comes to her side of the bed to kiss her. It's soft and sweet and so deeply familiar. Charles doubts he could ever get tired of watching them. There's no room for Erik on that side, so he comes around to join Charles, stretching out as if he always sleeps here. He takes Charles's hand and does nothing else for a long moment. 

And then he and Magda share one of those looks that's like telepathy, and Erik is kissing Charles. He does it softly and hesitantly, as if it's the first time and as if that hadn't been almost brutally competent and smooth. Charles sighs, and just breathes with him for a moment, the touch light and warm before Erik presses closer and deepens it, slowly mastering Charles's mouth. There's something so _hungry_ about the way Erik kisses, and Charles knows that he will let himself be devoured.

75\. When no one seems to have any idea what really happened on the beach, Magda knows precisely who to blame. But try as she might, she can't be angry. Not with her all her children safe below the radar. Moira is still here and still knows the truth, but her fellow government agents have yet to come swooping down. Even Erik seems to find it unlikely, though he watches her with eyes like green glass, all coldness and caution.

76\. Alex is oblivious to the undercurrents among the adults in his life, and Darwin might as well be for all he cares. Now that he's well again, he can work on reeling the boy in at last. Darwin has never really been in the closet. He just doesn't tell anyone who doesn't ask, and of course, lies when it makes sense to. His parents have never seemed to care, which might be different if Darwin wasn't a mere one out of five potential producers of grandchildren. The more time he spends with Alex, the more he realizes how different their lives have been. Alex leans on him, hugs him, fuzzes his hair (since it doesn't really ruffle) gets close enough to kiss more times than Darwin can count, but doesn't actually take any of the increasingly broad hints Darwin is giving him. He gets as handsy with him as he did back at Langley and the kid still insists on pretending he doesn't know what's going on, even as he leans into Darwin's touch, gets half hard sometimes at just a hand on this thigh. Darwin's easy-going nature is being sorely fucking tested, but every time he looks into Alex's eyes he can see how young and scared the kid is, and it gives him patience he didn't know he had.

So when Alex finally does just lean over one night as they're sitting side by side and watching _The Eleventh Hour_ and kiss him, it doesn't surprise him that the consuming sweetness ends just as suddenly as it started, Alex shoving him away hard and running out of the room. Darwin takes a moment to catch his breath, scrubbing the back of one hand slowly across his mouth. Well. He gets up and walks after Alex. There's only a few places he goes when he's really upset, and Darwin knows all of them. He goes to his own room sometimes, but more often the attic. Right now it seems mostly likely that he's walking the grounds, afraid of setting the house on fire even with the lightweight control vest that works better than the clunky old one because Hank is a goddamn genius. There's a slim chance he'll be in the kitchen, but Darwin passes through it on his way out and Magda just points out the door with a wooden spoon, the green smell of vegetables boiling down filling the kitchen. Even now he pauses to tickle Wanda under her fat chin and make her laugh, and Magda's face softens a little, but she still says, "Go get him, he's fighting with himself again."

"Sorry about that, ma'am." He scurries on out, and finds an actual advantage to going after the whitest white boy ever. There's still some of that really dim purple light left, and Alex's skin practically glows in the dark. He's a beacon down by the water, and Darwin can tell he's thinking about running again, so he ambles up slowly, adapting his eyes to see the details. The way Alex's shoulders are up by his ears and how deep his fists are buried in his pockets. He's got that jacket wrapped around him like armor, and just like always it makes Darwin want to peel it off and kiss everything better. He stops beside Alex, and stares off into space with him. Their shoulders are almost touching, but not quite. "Hey," Darwin finally says.

"…Hey yourself."

"If you can't deal it's… well, it's not _cool_ , it's sad, but I understand."

Alex shivers. "It's not really you being a guy. Not exactly."

"…If it's because I'm black, I'm drop-kicking your pearly white ass off this bank."

"What?!" He whirls around, looking offended. "Hell, no! Jesus, that's not it at all. Give me a little credit, man." He runs a hand through his hair, looking so defeated it's hard not to hug him.

"Okay."

"Besides, I'm a mutant, I think it's a little too late to be worrying about interracial faggotry, you know?"

"I do know. So what is it?"

"It's stupid."

"A lot of things are. Try me."

"Well, do you know what goes on in prison?"

Darwin's blood runs cold and then boiling hot. "Alex, if some son of a bitch hurt you like that, I just want you to know that you don't have to do a single thing you don't want and that I'll dig him up and kill him again if he's already dead."

"Yeah, I know." He looks up at Darwin, mournful in the dark. "Hell, they didn't even _succeed_ , but they tried and I got so scared. I'm still so scared, and I never really liked guys before so it feels like I caught it in jail even though that's dumb."

Darwin sighs. "Alex, honey." He takes Alex's hand, meeting no resistance. "Stuff like that changes. Not a lot, not all at once, but you don't have to be a complete fairy to like just one guy."

77\. "Is it too late to take back my agreement to help with this academy you and Erik want?" She molds herself to Charles's back as he stands by the crib, nuzzling into his hair, and knows that he must feel how little she really means it.

"Are the larger children being troublesome, my love?"

She tells him about Darwin and Alex and their constant dance and how old it's getting, interrupted by Erik's low chuckle in the doorway. He's holding Pietro, who is miraculously asleep, buzzing a little in his tiny dreams. "I swear I'll lock them in a broom closet together if something doesn't give soon."

"And what about you, Erik?" Magda turns to him, a hand one hip, the other resting on Charles's shoulder. He comes over and tucks Pietro in beside his sister, blushing faintly.

"I have no idea what you might be referring to, pulse of my heart."


	13. Chapter 13

78\. Madga hadn't given any thought to the thing at all before the camps. And then she had seen the men with the pink triangles, and been curious enough even through deprivation and grief, to work out what it was for. Raised to be a good girl and despise sin, she had been horrified. But she had watched them. Watched them and seen the even greater than usual cruelty of the guards, how some of them still loved each other even in that awful place, and finally she had realized that there was no difference. Jews, homosexuals, Roma, Poles, mental patients and prostitutes had all been there together. Whatever they thought of each other, Magda had failed to see how they could miss certain commonalities. The men with the pink triangle had had the same soul in their eyes as anyone else. Without the badges they could have been almost anything, and Madga had had dreams of the great Everyone Else, all those peoples the Nazis had tagged chasing the tagless ones down like dogs, patches stitched together into insane broken rainbow banners flying in the sun.

Now she watches her husbands, past and present, as they touch each other like they're not sure they're allowed. Erik's hands are so very careful as he strips Charles to the waist, moving slowly and hanging each piece over the footboard. Magda is sitting in Charles's chair, her chin cupped in her hands. Two men together is strange, but two beautiful men together is two beautiful men. She shivers to see the devouring way Erik kisses from the outside, able to appreciate its beauty because she's not drowning in it. He cradles the back of Charles's head in one big hand, fingers lost in those curls, and Charles clutches at his back. Erik is still wearing his thin, ribbed singlet, and its pristine whiteness touches her heart. She had been stunned to see what he would endure to have clean underwear immediately after liberation, a skeleton hunched over cold water, scrubbing with wood ash and grease and all the patience of death. Magda had kept her clothes on and stank until they had been warm again.

A sharp snap of Erik's hips and Charles's answering high-pitched cry bring her back to the present. Erik muffles him with his palm, eyes sparkling with mischief as he gazes down at Charles. He just rests there for a moment, all that weight and coiled strength pressing Charles into the mattress in the way Magda knows so well. And then he starts to rut against him again, quick and rough and it must be hurting them both at least a little, but Charles groans and writhes and wraps his legs around Erik. He digs his nails into Erik's back and it makes him whimper high and sweet and finally tear both their trousers off. For a moment they tussle in shorts and socks like a couple of schoolboys, and then Erik has Charles pinned with both wrists over his head, grinning.

"I win."

"Mmm, but there's such a lovely big prize for losing," Charles murmurs, arching up to rub against him again.

"You, Charles Frances Xavier, are a filthy boy and I'm not sure you're a good influence on my wife." Charles stares up with those big, innocent eyes, and blushes like the girl Magda used to be. "But," Erik murmurs, "it's not as if I could possibly resist you." Charles whimpers and helps Erik to get them both truly naked at last. She can't help but study Erik's new scars, but they're like the fresh bruises on both of them; proof that they're alive and here with her. She hands Erik the oil that has been waiting in the nightstand for a while now, and the two of them share a smile, thinking of the dim days even before they were even expecting Anya, both of them eager and shy and experimental.

79\. Charles has only done this a few times, and is shocked at his wife's readiness. Erik laughs at him, full of affection. "What, you thought you taught her all she knows?"

"I hope never to become so foolish," Charles says, beaming, "but you _have_ never said a word about this, darling. Did you not like it?"

Magda blushes and shakes her head, and Erik's smile softens as he looks at her. "I liked it quite well, but it takes so much more time than the other ways."

"Ah, I see." And he does see, flashes of memory from both of them. How careful Erik had been, how gentle and slow. He's the same way now, pressing soft and reverent kisses to Charles's bared throat as he rubs slow circles on Charles's hole, pressing in as he relaxes and holding still each time he can't help but tense. He murmurs softly in all his languages, telling Charles that he's beautiful and that he's doing so well and being so good. His thoughts and emotions are a soft, steady wash of adoration and encouragement that makes Charles giddy and breathless. A second finger goes in much more easily, and he moans, muffled when Erik kisses him. Looking over at Magda, their gazes lock and he can feel himself flushing all over.

"Such a pretty pink," Erik murmurs, and it sounds fucking _menacing_ and Charles wonders if he's going to come before they even get properly started.

80\. Finally, finally sinking into Charles is so good that Erik doesn't even care if it kills him, which it very well might. He has this ingenious, infuriating, idiotic and _perfect_ man pinned under him, his to fuck and drown in and cover in kisses and bites. More than pinned, practically folded in half and taking a much rougher pounding than Erik had meant to give him. His mouth hangs open without a sound, and his nails in Erik's back are like spurs. He's too undone to kiss back, but Erik doesn't mind, licking those obscene and beautiful lips and then pulling away to thrust two fingers into his mouth, growling about all the cocksucking their future together will hold.

It's Magda who brings Charles off in the end, kneeling by the bed and taking his slick and aching cock in hand while Erik grinds as deeply into him as he can and clamps one hand over his mouth to hold back something that's nearly a scream. Seeing and feeling that, Erik has no choice but to follow, shaking and gasping harshly for breath, hips bucking mindlessly. He whimpers, and tips onto his side, pressing his face to Charles's shoulder. A moment later, Magda presses a kiss to his forehead and then to Charles's, and goes to check on the twins, who have just begun to fuss. Erik forces his eyes open to watch her, and she turns and smiles, radiant and looking years younger than her true age. A baby sits in each arm, Pietro sucking his thumb and looking irritable, Wanda gnawing on Magda's nightgown.

"I'll let you gentlemen rest a moment," she says with the faintest little smirk, and Erik is sure the love he feels will break him like spun glass.

He and Charles doze a while, and when Magda comes back and eases the twins to sleep again, they draw her down between them. Charles sits up against the headboard and holds her close and lets his palms carry the weight of her heavy breasts. Her nipples are too swollen and sensitive to touch, and he lets them be, kissing her neck and breathing in the scent of her heavy hair. It always smells the tiniest bit like wood smoke, no matter what, and Erik purrs, burying his face between her legs and letting Charles keep her quiet.

81\. Magda is angry the whole day Moira leaves, even after the two of them have a long talk about Moira's reasons for agreeing to let Charles block off her memories of her time with them. It doesn't matter that Moira understands and consents and that all this time isn't gone, just walled away. None of that matters at all, and Magda slams things around in the kitchen and doesn't speak to either of them. The babies catch her mood and cry all day, which only makes it worse. The kids are all walking on eggshells, and no one dares to so much as make tea all day, gulping down uncomfortable meals from plates still ringing with the force of hitting the table.

Erik and Charles both flee, Charles skulking around like a whipped dog in the library, Erik occupying himself with his offspring. He walks up and down one of the upper hallways with heretofore unwitnessed patience, murmuring and clucking to a pair of stressed and squirmy babies. After a while, he's keeping pace with them as they crawl, making sure little fingers don't find their way into anything hazardous.


	14. Chapter 14

82\. "Please, dearest," Charles murmurs, coming up close behind Magda as she washes dishes that don't need washing, not touching her. "She hasn't lost anything, I promise you. It's all there. I didn't tamper with it, I didn't even _look_ at it Magda, honestly."

"And would you do such a thing to me, if I knew too much?" She knows she's not being fair. It hadn't been Moira's idea, but she had agreed readily, had even seemed relieved, since it would be impossible to give away things she didn't know she knew.

"Never without your consent, Magda. _Never_."

And it's as if he's forgotten how easily he could make anyone want what he wants, and it makes her love him and hate him more. Turning to look at him, she can't bear to pursue it. It would be cruel, and for all his terrifying potential, Charles's soul is one of the sweetest she's ever encountered. "…You're lucky your eyes can look so sad, Charles."

"It's no effort when I feel I've disappointed you, my love." He takes her suds covered hands and gazes into her eyes as if he'll find the answer to every question in the universe there. He's so like Erik sometimes. She presses a kiss to his forehead, feeling her heart unlock again.

83\. Shaw may be dead, but everyone continues their training all the same. Magda cooks, cleans, looks after two fussy babies and patches up the grown children when they come in with plasma burns, spike wounds, and sprains. Charles and Erik are busy teaching them not to hurt themselves, but are never too busy to help her with the twins, which is a divine mercy because they are of course both teething at the same time. As always, Pietro is the more fretful of the two, and today she can't even get a pie crust mixed before he's wailing again. She groans, and beats the flour off her hands, crouching to untie her son. The others had been slightly horrified by her methods at first, but she has to keep them safe and her life has had too many cages in it. 

She unties the strip of soft material from around Pietro's fat little belly where he has scooted himself to the edge of the blanket. There's a stack of towels underneath it to keep things soft but not too soft, and they're set up in front of the sofa with its short, sturdy legs and a rolled up blanket blocking them from the space underneath. It's a good system, only a step or two from the kitchen where it's warm and she can see them. Wanda is still happy with her old bread, gumming the blunt end of the narrow loaf Magda had made for them. Pietro has somehow turned his around and found the one edge of crust on the whole thing sharp enough to hurt him, and snuffles in her arms, miserable with a cut on his already sore gums. Magda sighs, and settles down on the blanket, cooing soothingly to Pietro and helping Wanda shift closer. That's how Erik finds her, one twin in the crook of her arm, the other on her lap. He smiles softly.

"All right?"

"If you'll get those pies I'm working on made."

"Savory or sweet?"

"Savory, one crust, last night's roast."

Erik nods, pulling off his sweatshirt and scrubbing his hands clean. She knows all his scars, even the ones still hidden by his undershirt, and traces them in her mind as she watches him work. He moves as decisively in the kitchen as anywhere else, and that had been one of the first things she had liked about him. She had been nine when they met, and he had greeted her at the door of his house wearing one of his mother's aprons and a light dusting of flour. He had stammered a bit because she was a stranger to him and a girl, but he hadn't been embarrassed to be helping his mother with the baking, and had worn his apron like the protection it was rather than a badge of shame. Magda had given them the basket of fresh eggs her mother had sent in gratitude for the bread Erik's mother had given Magda during the thin time before the calf was big enough to sell. 

A delicate touch on her mind recalls her to the present. Charles is curious, having come in and seen her so thoughtful. She's still wary of letting him in often or easily, but she wants him to see this. She shares the image of Erik in his floury apron, and shows him her mother as well, laughing when her daughter told her about the tall boy with eyes like metal who wasn't handsome yet, but might be someday.

"Well, it's someday, love," Charles teases.

"You know full well what I think." She offers Pietro her breast and he takes it, still sulky. "And I know what you think."

84\. Alex isn't usually in the kitchen this late, but fooling around with Darwin makes him hungry. He does his best not actually whistle a merry tune at the thought of the gorgeous, understanding man asleep in his bed, and then stops, hearing voices in the kitchen. It's got to be at least three in the morning, who the hell is having an actual conversation down there? He creeps the rest of the way down, stealthier than most people give him credit for.

"If we're going to do this," Erik is saying, "the quicker the better."

"Of course," someone else murmurs, and Alex shivers when he places the voice as Azazel's. His skin crawls as he makes his way closer and closer. The other two are with Azazel. Angel and the guy who never talks. He's actually looking worried for once, sticking close to Azazel. Angel is hugging herself, not looking any better. Erik sighs, rubs his eyes, and sends Alex skittering back into the shadows of the hall when he goes past him to get his boots and coat. Thus equipped, he takes their hands and vanishes.

Alex just sits there in stunned silence for a long moment, and then bolts upstairs to wake Charles. He stops at the door, always kind of embarrassed to intrude on marital space, but this is an emergency. Still, he raps on the doorjamb first. "Charles?" _Charles!_ He thinks it as loudly as he can, and Charles jolts up as if he had shouted.

_Alex? What's wrong?_

And he just spills the whole thing into Charles's mind, because he doesn't want to have actually _tell_ him that Erik has gone off in the middle of the night to do god knows what with their enemies.

Charles runs a hand through his hair. "…Oh. Pass me that robe, will you?" He murmurs, and Alex does, tiptoeing and grimacing with memories of his mother hollering at him not to wake the baby, and goddamn does he miss that little snot. He turns his back because Charles is presumably naked under the covers and he'd bet good money Magda is and he's just going to bring that train of thought to a screeching halt now.

85\. They can't really do anything but hope Erik comes back while Charles stretches his powers to the limits searching for him. It's a quiet, miserable vigil, and Alex is glad he has Darwin to lean on. He can feel Bozo fucking staring at them, but if he thinks that's gonna make a difference it only proves that geniuses can be stupid too. Sean is blinking and yawning and struggling to actually wake up, while Raven paces in her irritation. Magda is strangely calm. She just walks back and forth with the babies, who have woken up despite everyone's best efforts. Darwin reaches out on one pass, and she hands him Wanda, who coos and babbles sleepily. Alex can't help but smile a little, because the kid loves Darwin about as much as he does. She's so tiny and so perfect that Alex is afraid to hold her when Darwin puts her in his arms, but she just chews on his shirt and watches everyone with big, dark eyes.

Erik comes sneaking back in just before dawn, something between a lean tomcat and a guilty kid out after curfew. The way he freezes when he sees that the lights are on almost makes Alex laugh, even though poor Charles has bloodshot eyes and a splitting headache and all of them are tooth-crackingly tense. Even Darwin, who's usually so cool about everything. Alex guesses he's got it bad when that worry just makes him love the guy even more.

"Erik Magnus Lensherr."

Erik actually cringes. "Magda…"

"Where have you been?"

He opens his mouth to reply, and closes it again. "Erik…" Charles heaves himself up from his chair, rubbing his red eyes with one hand. "Answer the question."

"…Langley."

"Why on—"

"Read my mind," Erik snaps, hands balled into white-knuckled fists.

Magda herds the children out of the room as Charles cups Erik's face in his hands.

 

86\. Without even touching Erik's mind, Charles can tell he means it. His eyes ache so badly that it fills his whole head, and he feels numb and battered, but he can reach Erik. It's such a relief after all that fruitless trying that he can't help a quiet little sob, and his body wobbles and pitches forward to lean on Erik's chest with no input from his mind, which is fluttering around and over Erik's like hands feeling that a beloved body is whole. Charles hasn't been able to help noticing that Erik has been worrying over something, but he hasn't had any idea of the shape of it. Now he can see memories of the camps, of brushed steel and restraints and sharp scalpels. He can feel bitter, bitter hate for Emma Frost, and the most abstract of loves. She is strong and smart and fierce and really quite a bit like Magda except for being a terrible person. But more importantly, she had been a mutant in the hands of humans, and Erik had been unable to leave her there.

_Oh, Erik. Did you think I wouldn't understand?_

_I know you don't understand, Charles. You can't._ And there's his time in the camps again, a grey wall that stinks of burning flesh and feels like greasy ash. _There is no way for you to know that kind of fear, beloved, and we don't want you to know it._

 

87\. Magda can understand Erik's need to rescue an enemy. She honestly can. What she cannot understand is his doing so without so much as a _note_ for the mother of his children. She tells him so, in a mix of their native tongues and at great length. Charles minds the twins so that her arms are free to gesticulate, and Erik weathers the blast as best he can, knowing that he deserves it.

 

88\. Erik spends that night in his own bed, and doesn't like it one bit. He curls around a pillow and sleeps fitfully. His dreams are bad, but nothing he remembers. When someone touches him in the darkest hour before dawn, he grabs the wrist hard enough to grind its bones together before he's even awake.

_It's only me, Erik._

He rolls over to make room without opening his eyes, shivering. "What are you doing here?"

"Sleeping with you." He wraps around Erik from behind, nuzzling between his shoulder blades. "Magda isn't best pleased with me, either."

Erik chuckles. "We may be here a while."

"Why didn't you tell us, Erik?"

"Because it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission."

"Oh, Erik. You are ridiculous."


	15. Chapter 15

89\. Pietro wakes Magda early, hungry and fussy, and she walks for what feels like years, trying to soothe him. He nips her when he feeds, pushes away anything she offers him to chew on, and is just barely quiet when Wanda starts to wail. Magda rolls her eyes heavenward and prays for strength. She pads back to the crib, only to find that Erik has beaten her there, hushing Wanda and murmuring nonsense to her as he changes her diaper.

Magda just keeps Pietro quiet and watches until Erik has washed up and is cradling Wanda again. It's so much like he was with Anya that for a moment she can't breathe. He looks up from his daughter's face, something raw and beseeching in his eyes. She sighs and goes to him, resting her head on his shoulder, all four of their arms occupied in a tangle of babies and warm proximity. The twins pat at each other with soft and clumsy little hands as Erik nuzzles Magda's ear, softly asking if she forgives him.

 

90\. The fall and winter of that year pass surprisingly quietly. The world is grateful for its reprieve, and they have everything they need, still such a strange feeling for Erik as well as herself. They take it as differently as Anya's death, Magda contented and Erik restless. The ceilings in this ridiculous palace are too high, but the bedroom and the kitchen are warm, and fires in the various unloved hearths help. Madga feels sorry for them, and glad whenever the children gather around one. Charles just smiles at her every time he catches a thought about how this place is far too big.

 _Not for a school, my Magdalene_ , he murmurs in her mind on one of the long, drowsy evenings, Pietro a contented little puddle on his chest.

He and Erik have been planning this academy of theirs for some time, and she just smiles. _I just hope the headmaster doesn't expect his wife to do all the housekeeping._

He chuckles, softly, in deference to Pietro. "Of course not." He glances out the window as it starts to rain. "I hope Erik gets in soon."

Magda sighs. "I wouldn't like to bet on it, dear one."

 

91\. It reaches the point that Erik's presence makes Charles's mind itch, the sensation transmitted along with none of the rationale. He's been edgy and moody (more so than usual, anyway) for weeks when Charles finally makes a thermos of mulled wine and catches up with him on one of the long, long walks he's been taking whenever they're not actually filling in forms and calling in favors to get this school off the ground. It doesn't seem to matter how wretched the weather gets. If anything, he stays out longer when it's sleeting. Today is particularly bad, and Charles is freezing by the time he catches up.

_Erik!_

Erik stops, and turns, waiting for him. He's wearing less, but of course seems immune to the cold. "What brings you out, Charles?"

"You, you daft bastard." He shivers, and drags Erik under a sheltering tree where it's not so cold, unscrewing the two cups and pouring the wine. "People always tell me not to pry, but something is clearly bothering the hell out of you, and by extension me."

"Sorry to leak so much."

"It's not your fault, but could we perhaps talk about it like human beings?"

"I don't see why not," Erik murmurs, and sips his wine, considering. Charles is therapeutically silent, hoping he won't guzzle too much and get drunk trying to get warm. "…I suppose it's because I'm provided for."

"So you're having some kind of breadwinner anxiety?"

Erik chuckles. "Not exactly. It's just… my entire adult life has been spent chasing revenge. The one moment I wasn't, I was working for Magda and Anya. I guess I feel like I should still be on the trail."

Charles leans on him. "I see." He shivers and refreshes his cup to make it steaming hot again, thinking about the various repairs Erik has done around the place. His hands are capable and clever, and even without using his powers (beyond passive awareness, which they're still working on) he has a knack for metal and mechanics. "What about day labor? I'm sure there are a lot of other—" The end of his sentence is lost the choking sound Erik makes, and the way his entire body shudders. Charles can feel a shock of grief, as well as the way Erik's stomach drops and his skin crawls. "Erik! My god, Erik, what's wrong?"

Erik doesn't answer in words so much as a flood of information, about the tiny farm he and Magda had thrown together, and how day labor had supplemented that. The Nazi gold that financed the hunt had been hidden during that time. A clean break from a life of blood and vengeance. And then there had been just one moment. One flare of anger at being sent empty-handed from his work, one prybar buried quivering in one wall. That was all it had taken for him to lose everything. The flash that overlays this of that same man screaming as scraps of metal flay him alive soothes Erik a little, but of course never enough.

 

92\. Erik has to smile when Charles starts dragging decades of neglected work out of storage for him. A great deal of it is actually necessary, and he works as mercilessly as he did in those Ukrainian fields. It's funny how he can still miss them. Only in little flashes, but it had been peaceful, waist deep in golden grain and thinking of nothing.

 

93\. Magda is the first to know when Charles finds Scott, and laughs as he flings himself at her for a jubilant bear hug. He has been on the phone nearly constantly for weeks, making calls for the school and call after call to the labyrinth of social workers that leads all the way back to a plane crash in Alaska two years ago. Now he knows where the boy is, and what he needs to prove in order to take him in.

It's Erik who goes to get the boy, a palliative for his itching feet. He moves quickly, but is still gone for two weeks. When he calls to say he's coming back and that Scott is with him and legal to stay with them, Charles finally tells Alex. Alex cries and gets embarrassed about crying and lets Darwin hold him which just embarrasses him more. Magda steps into the kitchen to do a little crying of her own, because she had wanted to see her own little sister again so badly after liberation. Sophia had been dead for years by then, but Magda had had no way of knowing.

Charles comes and finds her, wrapping his arms around her waist. It's a quiet moment of just the two of them, Hank and Raven playing with the twins, the other children all buzzing with the idea of a new arrival, even if he is just a kid. _All right, dearest?_

_Yes, acushla._

 

94\. Scott has no idea what to say to Mr. Lensherr, and keeps having no idea the whole way to Westchester. The guy makes him nervous, and looks like Scott has always assumed hitmen look. He seems to be studying Scott, but is kind in his detached way. At a roadside diner he sips coffee and watches Scott devour everything in sight. It's not like they've been starving him, but he's had way too many peanut butter sandwiches over the last couple years and is anxious to make up for it. Mr. Lensherr orders pie, but then he just picks at it a little before sliding it across the table to Scott. It's blueberry, Scott's favorite. He glances up, and Mr. Lensherr just smiles, sitting there with that predatory watchfulness that's so unlike anyone Scott has ever met. It seems weird to think of him in the context of a school.

"Mr. Lensherr?"

"Yes?"

"What kind of school is it?"

"A special one. For people like your brother."

And Alex doesn't need to go to the special school for retards and he doesn't need to go to the special school for psychos, so there's only one thing Mr. Lensherr can mean. And that makes Scott nervous, because as far as he knows he's not special like Alex, and maybe they won't let him stay. Mr. Lensherr must see it in his face, because he shakes his head. "You're family, Scott. Your mutation or lack thereof doesn't matter."

"Oh. …Will Professor Xavier think so?"

He laughs for the first time since Scott has known him. "I wouldn't worry about that."


	16. Chapter 16

95\. Alex is practically quivering like a puppy, waiting for Scott to arrive. Darwin just grins at him and squeezes his hand. And even though Alex has been worrying about what the kid will think of him being all queerish, he can't wait to see him again. He keeps pestering Charles to feel around for them, and Charles just laughs and swears he'll tell Alex the minute he can feel them coming. They've set up a little welcome home party, and he knows he'll never actually be able to articulate how much that means. Magda has made an even better than usual spread for lunch, as well as a giant lemon cake because it's a flavor everyone (Scott included) will eat. Well, last Alex checked, and fuck, what if he hates it?

"Ssshhh. He's gonna be glad to see you." Darwin wraps his arms around Alex's waist from behind, hugging him close.

"…Yeah."

_Alex?_

_Yes?_

_They're on their way up the drive._

Alex bolts down to the door, and sure enough, Erik is pulling up and that skinny little fucker in the shotgun seat is Scott. He forgets to worry about anything when the kid jumps out of the car, and just grabs him and hugs him and doesn't let go for a long time.

96\. The Academy opens that spring, more as a boarding house than a school. There are far more than enough bedrooms, and there's a need for them, children banished from home or more reluctantly sent away to where their dangerous powers can be contained. There's a pretty little redheaded girl named Jean, whose mind flickers and dances around Charles', promising future grace and power, and sullen Sarah, whose sharp bones protrude out from her skin and form heavy clubs and sharp knives. Erik likes this one, of course. Two angry and wounded spirits, they take to each other. 

They're out on one of their walks around the grounds where Scott's powers manifest, blasting a hole in the roof and terrifying everyone. Magda bolts outside with both twins as Charles reaches out all over the house to make certain his students and his family are all right. Erik feels for support beams and is relieved to find that the structural integrity of the wing hasn't been affected.

Going in to investigate, he runs into Charles and the two of them head to Scott's room, where Alex is holding his brother tightly. "It's okay, Scotty. Just keep your eyes shut."

"And here you thought you wouldn't fit in," Erik murmurs, and Scott laughs weakly, clinging to Alex.

"You are at least among the closest thing to experts available." Charles gently examines Scott physically and telepathically, frowning. "Well, I can't find any levers marked 'off,' but there's some kind of autonomic connection or you'd have blown your eyelids off.

"There's no heat in the metal," Erik murmurs, feeling it with his powers.

"Is it a cutting blast, Scott?"

"It j-just kinda punched through the roof," Scott whimpers. "Am I in trouble?"

Erik rolls his eyes. "Of course not."

"What if I had hurt the babies?!" He's starting to get hysterical, and Alex rubs his back, hushing him.

"There's a reason Magda keeps them close," Charles says gently. "And all's well that ends well. We will have to move you—oh, honestly! Just to the practice bunker until we find some kind of control mechanism. It's a bit dreary, but it's the only place we can be reasonably sure you can't break. Erik, would you collect the record player and some clothes?"

97\. Magda feels for Scott. Even with the kindest jailers and for the most compelling reasons, he is imprisoned. She comes by to visit him every day, many of the others doing the same. Alex is staying with him in the end of the bunker they've reserved for their improvised beds, and everyone is loaning them music, since it's one of the few things Scott can really enjoy right now. Hank may as well be living there, with his constant experiments with Scott's blasts and various materials. Darwin mopes, because there's barely space for Alex with all the room they need for testing and he can't hang around down there as much as he'd like.

The first time Charles and Erik need to be bailed out of jail is during Scott's time in the bunker. Given the swirl of activism they've been swept up in, Magda is expecting it. The call is late, but doesn't wake her. It's Charles, calling from holding. He sounds sheepish and apologetic, and she just laughs softly, glad down to her fingertips to be in America. She leaves her sleepy twins with Darwin and gets a grumbling Raven to drive her down to the jail. They seem to expect her to be ashamed, but she is not, and meets their eyes calmly. Charles has drawn out thousands of dollars in cash for bail, knowing that he and Erik will need it, and Magda counts out the hundreds until her men are free.

Charles is coping by being charming and polite to everyone, Erik by being icy. Madga settles for bundling them out and into the car, sitting in the back with Erik. Charles and Raven talk about visibility and nonviolence and Erik just pulls Magda close enough to rest her head on his shoulder.

98\. It's interesting, how tolerant people are of the Xavier Academy. Magda supposes it helps that most of the 'damned muties' in the place are children, and only the most hateful are comfortable with the idea of hurting them. Besides, Charles has contributed a great deal to local causes. Even people who despise mutants point him out as an example of one that's not so bad. It's hard to form a mob to tear down a man's school when his donations have given your own children new textbooks and better labs and more comprehensive libraries. Charles's faith that this will _keep_ working worries her, but Erik is prowling around and waiting for the other shoe to drop. She knows that no matter what happens, the family will be harmed or separated over his dead body. He's a grown man now, in full command of his powers. This time no one will take his loved ones from him. His wary presence is a comfort, some ballast for Charles's faith in humanity.

There are hiccups here and there, of course, and more arrests, but they have a procedure for those now, and Charles doesn't even have to influence anyone to get off every time. He does no more than exercise his right to assembly, and keeps Erik on the same short leash. However much the opposition hates them, they don't have much legal recourse. Charles's wealth, education, and white skin help him too, of course. But that has always been the way, and at least Charles is generous with the things that get handed to him. With greater and greater visibility, they have to at least begin to pretend that Erik is only Charles's good friend and deputy headmaster. Magda doesn't like it, but she has agreed to let Charles make anyone who finds out forget, if only for the safety of the school and all the lost children in their care. All those with them on the beach know, of course. For various levels of knowing. Hank pretends not to, Darwin and Alex just smile quietly sometimes, playing the same game of "only" being the very best of friends. Raven knows full well, and has asked a few shy and oblique questions about how one manages two men. It isn't proper at all, but Magda tells her a few things, simply because the girl has no mother.

99\. It's a funny kind of home, but Scott is just glad to have one again. He's out of the bunker and free to explore at last. He doesn't suppose he'll ever see anything not tinted red again, between the blasts themselves and the goggles Hank makes him, but at least he's free. The goggles stay on really well, too, so he can swim and climb trees and roughhouse with Alex and even play with the babies and not worry. Hank is kinda dorky, but he's a good guy, and Scott tells him so. And Alex teases him less, now that Scott's around to remind him not to get mean.

Darwin's cool, too. He knows about good movies and music and even some stuff about girls, who are just beginning to interest Scott. He also knows about clothes, and gently nudges Scott to be just a little less square. He's doing the same thing to Alex, and Alex is actually letting him. Scott has never seen his brother this close to anyone before. It's amazing and kinda weird and when he catches them kissing he just stands there and stares and stares and stares before making a weird squeaky noise and running away. He can hear them cursing behind him, but he doesn't even know if he's mad or not and he doesn't want to talk right now, and this is a big place where it's easy to hide.

He comes to a stop up in the attic, where it's dusty and calm and nobody bothers him. He hides behind a box and hugs his knees to his chest, thinking about the sight. He guesses it wasn't gross, but it is… weird. For one thing, Alex is always so tough, and he had just been leaning into Darwin's arms and just tipping his head back and letting himself be kissed like women do in the movies.

100\. Erik finds himself stuck with Alex for the week or so it takes Scott to make up his damn mind that yes, Alex is his brother, and no, it does not matter who he sleeps with. He and Magda can't help but be impatient, tempers shortened by the keening agony of all their lost family. They would take any of them back and never mention their myriad faults again, so it's irritating to see Scott so hesitant. At least it doesn't last long, and Erik has the satisfaction of seeing hugs and reconciliations on all sides. Exhausted by other people's emotions, he wanders back upstairs, grateful that it's summer and all they really have to do is keep the children fed and clothed and alive and not too bored while they set up real curricula for the coming fall and build all the containment and training facilities they're going to need. Learning from having to lock poor little Scott up, they're working on making a nicer place to stay for anyone else with uncontrollable blasts, as well as a room that dampens telepathy without completely blocking it (Charles and Jean have tested it and both found it much more restful than isolating), and another reserved for anyone whose enhanced sensory perception makes regular accommodations uncomfortable.

Luckily it's the calm beginning of the afternoon and the closest thing they'll have to a day off for the rest of their lives. Raven, Sean and Hank are watching the younger kids, and Magda is celebrating Moira's being allowed to remember them by taking the twins to see her.

"It's so quiet," Erik murmurs, stretched out beside Charles on the bed. They're on top of the covers, a block of golden sun lying across them as heavy as some lazy animal.

"So rare these days."

"Yes." Erik stretches and sighs. "Do you need to be told about the Summers family reconciliation?"

"No." Charles rolls over to look down at Erik, smiling softly. Erik smiles back and drags him down for a kiss.


	17. Chapter 17

101\. Wanda guesses it's different, living in a school with so many other kids and having a Mama, a Daddy, _and_ a Papa, but she likes it. For one thing, the bigger kids are like her and Pietro, so they're actually fun to play with. The last time they went to the park some boys wanted to race Pietro, and he had to explain that he was so fast it would just be boring. And then they didn't believe him so he had to show them and they got kinda scared. Especially because Pietro isn't as good at making friends as Wanda. Still, she had smoothed it over. After all, they could still play a perfectly good game of hide and seek, and Wanda had had some of Mama's good spice cookies to share. But still, it's nicer not having to explain things. At home Sean can take them flying, and Hank can race with Pietro and have the outcome actually be in doubt. 

It's late summer today, and hot. She and Pietro have been playing outside, but come back in for kompot. Mama is on the couch, doing the mending with the radio on quietly, but she doesn't mind getting up and pouring each of them a cup. This batch is made mostly from an excess of fresh strawberries that weren't getting eaten fast enough, and so is even better than usual, sweet and red and clear. They sit down at the table and sip neatly, because Mama keeps things clean. Wanda isn't hungry, but Mama gives Pietro a sandwich with his kompot. Pietro always has to eat more, and Mama says it's been that way since the day they were born. They tell her about their games and she re-braids Wanda's hair as she listens. The funny thing about Mama is that she always seems to have time for them. It's like magic. No matter how much mending there is or how upset any new student might be, she always finds a quiet bit of time to listen.

Daddy is out with Jean today, teaching her to manage her powers better as they get stronger, and Papa is working with Angel on this magnetic perception stuff she has. Daddy says it's because Angel is kind of like a bug, and that many bugs have a good sense of direction nobody can quite explain. Mama checks the time, surprised that it's so close to dinner time. She sets Pietro to unloading and reloading the dishwasher, and Wanda to sweeping. Wanda can't explain how Mama looks as she rolls up her sleeves and gets to work, but the word she doesn't know yet is 'professional.'

By the time Daddy and Papa come in, the whole house smells like dinner, and Mama is stretching her arms and wiping the sweat from her face with a damp paper towel. Jean beams and greets them all inside their heads, running upstairs to wash up and probably talk to Scott. Angel ruffles Pietro's white hair and tells Wanda that her braids are pretty, making her giggle. Papa smiles just a little bit, the way he does most of the time, and wades through them to give Mama a kiss before swinging Wanda up onto his hip. Mama kisses him again because he's there and then presses another one to Wanda's cheek as Daddy comes over to hug everyone in greeting before some of the bigger kids come running in demanding to know what's for dinner.

It's crowded sometimes, but Wanda is never lonely.

102\. Erik scents the political wind like an old dog-fox guarding his vixen and cubs, and finds only a little relief from his tension as it continues to blow mild. Charles tells him to have more faith, but Magda understands. And of course the children have no idea. He watches them now from the roof, as Pietro runs inexhaustible loops and figure-eights around the property. Wanda is running too, fast for a normal child, and laughing as she flings her arms wide, serving as her brother's personal obstacle course, her strange powers warping the landscape around him, and flashing out in blasts. They sting, but they're not very strong yet, and are really just the thing Erik would have invented to teach his son agility as well as speed. Lovely bursts of scarlet that don't harm a hair on his head, but serve to keep him on his toes. One gets him at last and he yelps, collapsing into a laughing heap. Wanda laughs as well, twirling in sheer self-satisfaction. He loves them both so much it's an actual pain in his chest, and he goes over his plans again in his head. There's still gold left from his wandering days, and papers for almost everyone now. It helps that Azazel owes him a favor.

103\. Wanda doesn't really think much about what color Mama's skin is until a boy at the park says it looks dirty. Mama does not look dirty. Mama is the soft brown of thick cardboard, or Daddy's tea when he puts the milk in, but so much prettier because Mama's skin is clean and alive and shining. When she holds hands with Daddy or Papa it looks like polished hazelwood against light birch, but Wanda can't say all of this. She just stamps her foot and yells, "She is not!" Mama is sitting on one of the benches with another lady who has a baby carriage, and she looks very pretty today, in the pink dress she made herself even though Daddy could buy her one. She says it's best to make your own if you want it to fit right and is already teaching Wanda how, and looks up because she can always hear it when someone is fussing.

"She does so!" He sticks his tongue out and sing-songs that Wanda's mama is a dirty gypsy and there's nothing she can do about it. He says that Wanda looks almost clean but not quite, and she shoves him down hard in the dirt even as Mama comes hurrying over. The boy is bawling now, and Wanda snarls, rubbing fistfuls of dirt all over his stupid pink face. She smears it in hard until Mama hauls her up, holding her back as she struggles in rage. Wanda tells her what the boy said as Pietro comes running up, and Mama's mouth just goes all tight, making a thin line.

"It's nothing I haven't heard before, Wanda. Even if this boy's mama has raised him to be rude, she is the one who will have to mend his clothes." Wanda spits at the boy and Mama lightly slaps her cheek with just the pads of her fingers. It doesn't actually hurt, but Wanda's lip wobbles anyway. "A lady doesn't spit at people."

"Yes, Mama," she sniffles. She's calm enough now for Mama to let her go and pull out the big, big handkerchief she carries because children are messy and scrub the dirt from Wanda's hands. Meanwhile, her opponent gets up and runs off to his own mother. Pietro glares after him, furious, and Mama crouches down and hugs them both tight, telling them in her own language that it's okay. Mama's language is special, and they both like to hear it. Even Pietro calms a bit. They've been waiting for Papa and Daddy to get back from Talking To Some People (which seems to be all they do sometimes, it takes an awful lot of talking to run a special school), and they come walking up now, the car parked outside the gate and out of sight. They speed up when someone yells, 'hey' really loud at Mama. It's the boy's father, flushed red with rage.

Papa doesn't run, but he does move faster, and his eyes are sharp and focused like they are when he makes designs with all the butter knives. Mama stands up straight and takes a step forward, sweeping Wanda and Pietro together behind her. "Can I help you?" Mama says, and it's polite and quiet but that doesn't mean that Mama's not mad.

"I don't know, can you control that little hellcat of yours?" He's all puffed up he's so angry, and Wanda wonders if it's because his son is a little sissy that cries too easily.

"She is only just five. Her self-control is not what it should be yet."

"You're damn right it's not!" He's getting louder, and people are turning to look. "And this country ain't what it should be, either, with people like you coming here and letting your damn brats run wild!"

"I have already told her that a lady doesn't strike people or spit." She narrows her eyes at him. "No matter how rude they have been."

"And what did my boy say?"

At this Wanda can contain herself no longer. "He said Mama's skin looked dirty!"

Papa comes up beside them as the man curls his lip and says, "Truth hurts, don't it?"

Pietro runs up and kicks him in the shins sixteen times before Mama can pull him back. The man falls over, staring at them in open-mouth horror. "Muties! You're fuckin' muties!"

"Language!" Mama snaps, putting her hands over Wanda's ears just like she does at home when the news makes Papa especially angry, or when Alex is losing at cards or Raven is having female trouble.

"Just get up and go back to your family," Papa sighs, sounding almost like he's tired. The man staggers to his feet, white except for red spots on his cheeks and forehead.

"You muties don't deserve to live! It's against nature!"

Daddy hasn't come as quickly as Papa, but he's here now. "Actually, we are precisely as nature made us, and we are leaving this park in peace. Please try to calm down." And they are leaving in peace, everyone staring, until the man yells again, yells that he's going to find out where they live and burn it down with Wanda and Pietro inside.

Suddenly, Daddy looks scared. Daddy almost never looks scared, and that scares Wanda worse than the idea of being burnt up. But he doesn't even look at the man, just throws his arms around Papa and starts talking to him out loud and in his head too. Everything is shaking, the whole ground and the buildings and the lightposts and she knows it's Papa making it happen but she's never seen it happen this big before.

"Papa! Papa, please don't break anything." She tugs at his trouser leg and the shaking stops. He looks down at her and nods, picking her up even though she's a big girl now¬. Pietro doesn't really like to be carried, but he tugs at Daddy until he does the same. The man is still yelling, but they stop being able to understand him as they get closer to the car.

For the rest of the day Mama and Papa are quiet like they are every year in the spring. It's like a birthday but not happy at all, because Pietro and Wanda are supposed to have a big brother or sister, but something happened. Today they stick close to Mama and Papa, and give them lots of hugs.

Even so, Papa walks the halls all night.


	18. Chapter 18

104\. Charles hates seeing anyone (particularly anyone he loves) upset or hurt by bigotry, and soothes Magda and Erik as best he can. Gradually Erik's pathological wariness eases, and by the end of the week he's in their bed again, clinging to them both as if they'll be snatched away. Charles is gentle with him, covering Erik in kisses before pressing him onto his back and taking him slow and deep. He and Magda hold Erik there, forcing him to feel the safety of their trust and the home they've made. All their children are safe, not just the twins. 

At last Erik goes back to checking on the twins his usual twice a night, letting the horrors of his past slide to the back of his mind again. It was easier for him when they were tiny babies, constant and blatant in their demands, but they're still enough of a handful for Erik to lose himself in raising them again, rather than worrying that they'll be snatched from him.

104\. It's funny, since Pietro is usually the standoffish twin and Wanda the friendly one, but today it's all reversed. Pietro is excited for kindergarten while Wanda sucks her thumb (which she hardly ever does anymore) and frets about being away from Magda for so long. Erik sits in the back of the car with Wanda in his lap, murmuring soothingly to her in the family's various languages. The children don't know how to read yet, but both already have a good command of English, French, and Spanish, with a fair working vocabulary in Magda's home dialect and Yiddish as well. Pietro is beside them, bouncing up and down on the seat. Magda looks back at them from her place beside Charles and smiles softly.

"Be brave, Wanda. It's only for the morning. You'll be home for lunch." Wanda nods, and Erik kisses the top of her head as Magda tells Pietro to look after his sister. Charles reminds them also to have fun and to learn, and the three of them walk the twins in together. The teacher is a friendly older lady with fluffy white hair and big blue eyes. Her mind is gentle on Charles's awareness, and he can tell instantly that she remembers being a child and is actually suited for her job. He reassures Wanda aloud like Erik and Magda do, and adds, _I can tell she's a nice lady_ on his way out, adding a final wash of love and pride at the end that touches Pietro as well. Wanda beams, and turns back to join the class.

105\. Magda feels very stupid when she starts to cry on the way home, and laughs through her tears at the alarm on Charles and Erik's faces. She assures them that it's nothing, just the inevitable acknowledgement that her babies are growing up. Erik stops the engine and they move to the back so Charles and Erik and both wrap their arms around her.

That morning is strangely empty, even with all the students to look after, and Magda continues mopey, surprised at herself. She supposes part of it is being spoiled. She's not anything like tired of her little ones. There are only two, and with so many others willing to watch them for a minute she has been able to take afternoon naps when she wants them, and to read and bathe in peace.

 _Brooding, precious love of mine?_ She hears Charles's footsteps behind her, and then he's wrapping both arms around her waist. _It's so strange not to feel their minds on mine._

She nods, leaning back into his embrace and putting her hands over his arms. "I'm not just brooding. I feel broody."

Charles chuckles. "Like a setting hen? I suppose we could support another chick or two. Do twins run in your family or Erik's?"

"Both, but more strongly on his side."

"Mm, I see." He nuzzles the nape of her neck, breathing in her scent.

"Professor!" 

Charles pulls away and rolls his eyes. "Yes?"

"Professor, is it true that Darwin can turn into metal?" The girl is only thirteen, and has pretty pale skin like a princess or Snow White, marred here and there with the scars her parents gave her trying to save her soul from the demon within. Watching her now, bright-eyed and bouncing on the balls of her feet, Magda feels a fierce surge of love for every person within these walls.

Charles chuckles, glowing to see the girl so much improved. "He's only done it once, and we're pretty sure Wanda was helping."

"Oh wow, cool!" She chatters away with Charles, her laugh as bright as her eyes, and then runs away again with one of the apples from the fruit bowl. Magda smiles and puts two more out.

"I've decided, Charles."

"Oh?"

"You love children so much, I have to have one of yours to go with Erik's."

106\. School is better than Wanda had thought it would be, and she holds Pietro's hand as they wait for Mama or Papa or Daddy to come get them. It probably won't be all of them again, because Mama will be cooking lunch, and Daddy might be working in his study or Papa might be talking to the builders again, because the house is big, but the part no one is using yet is so old that some of the ceilings have gone bad, and there are some leaks and the electrical wiring is too old. She and Pietro aren't supposed to play there and they don't, because it's dreary anyway. All the fun places are in use. 

They painted pictures today and learned their alphabet (mostly), and some counting past ten. No one was mean to them and two of the other girls said that Mama is very pretty, which is true. They also liked Wanda's dress, which Mama made, and Melinda and Katie have agreed to be friends with her. Pietro hasn't made any yet, but that's how Pietro is. He's vibrating a bit beside her, and she know he could probably just run home with a few stops to rest, but Wanda can't run that fast or that long, and he's supposed to stay with her. His painting is of a fish, and Wanda admires it again, looking up as the car pulls up. Papa gets out and they both run to him and show him their pictures. He grins, and listens to both of them, glad to hear they've had a good day. They get into the back and buckle up, and Papa drives away as he tells them that Mama has been missing them, and that she's making their favorite things for lunch.

107\. Erik can tell that Charles and Magda are planning something. He doesn't notice immediately in the relief of getting the children safely home from the terrors of kindergarten, but gradually their observation starts to prickle at his awareness. They're both watching him, moving around him in a way that reminds him of how they acted before inviting him into their bed. The mystery is just starting to irritate him when they finally just tell him what's going on, after Charles has sucked him into a near-stupor and he's flat on his back between the two of them, purring under their lazily moving hands.

"Erik, love?" Magda murmurs, nuzzling his chest with her silky hair brushing along his almost oversensitive skin.

"Mm?"

"Charles and I have something we'd like to discuss with you."

He chuckles without opening his eyes. "And this discussion couldn't take place upright and clothed because?"

"Because you're fearfully possessive sometimes, darling," Charles says, kissing his cheek, "and we wanted you in a good mood."

"I am possessive of both of you, you fool." He turns his head and kisses Charles on the mouth, his arm tightening a little around Magda. "What is it that you want from me? To leave you alone together for a while?"

"…In a sense, I suppose," Charles murmurs.

"I've borne three of yours," Magda says very softly, and Erik kisses her like they can share the taste of their sorrow, feeling its bittersweet claw around his heart. "I want one of Charles's."

He looks down fondly at both of them. "You really thought I'd mind that?"

Magda smiles. "Charles was afraid you would be jealous."

"Why would I want to deprive the world of such a beautiful and talented child?" He pets both of them, holding them close to his heart, and Magda purrs.

"And don't worry, Erik. There are two other places for you while we're working on it."

He chuckles. "God grant that I be worthy of this woman."

Charles sighs and presses closer. "Amen."


	19. Chapter 19

108\. Charles realizes that he was a fool to underestimate a mature woman who truly wants a baby. It's all he can do not to limp around the campus and into and out of interviews with prospective staff, aching and sleep-deprived. He feels physically battered and can't even whine about being too old for this kind of thing because he's the youngest of the three of them. Erik seems to thrive on his suffering, the bastard. It's not fair, he can do things like lie between their legs and just lick them both as Charles takes Magda, conserving his energy.

Still, if they're the death of him he'll be the happiest corpse anyone has ever seen. He stumbles through the day in a haze of respectability with memories of the previous night playing like the world's most perfect stag film in his head, trying not to broadcast it and unsure of his success, only to make more in the night. It's already late tonight, but most of this paperwork will not wait. Even for Magda, which is just not cricket. He tries the bedroom door and finds it locked.

 _Charles?_ It's Erik's mental voice, pitched low and fuzzy with pleasure.

 _Yes._ The lock obligingly disengages, and Charles steps inside and closes the door behind him with the few autonomous nerve twitches left to him as he just stares. Magda is on all fours, head buried in Erik's lap, the glory of her dark curls spilling over his thighs. Positioned the way she is, Magda is opened like a flower to his gaze, dark and dripping with lust. Erik is lounging back on the pillows like the barbarian king he is at heart, one hand loosely tangled in Magda's hair. He smiles, flushed and heavy-eyed.

"We were wondering when you would get here," he purrs.

Charles whimpers as the door locks behind him, and scrambles gracelessly out of his clothes. He crawls over Magda and nuzzles her neck, touching her mind with warmth and lust and deep appreciation. She slides off of Erik's cock and turns her head to kiss him breathless before getting back to work and letting him join in. Erik groans deep in his chest, gripping them both by the hair and tugging gently, growling a filthy litany in his collection of languages. Even a little sore from last night, it isn't long before Charles is rock hard and can slip into Magda as easy as breathing, all of them whimpering the same helpless note.

 

109\. Things aren't as bad as Erik seems to think, but they can spare him to go prospecting if it will fulfill him. And it seems that it will. Charles has always suspected Erik of being something of a Zionist, and now he goes forth to seek a safe land for their people. Charles doesn't believe in separatism, but such a place could be useful for dispossessed and visible mutants in crisis. Magda doesn't like having Azazel within a mile of the children, but he own bows deeply and says nothing, politely waiting for Erik to join him, which he does. He looks very much like the lone hunter Charles met five years ago, but he telepathically murmurs that they'll have some time to work on their project this way, smirking faintly as he kisses Magda and Charles goodbye. He's more serious when he crouches to kiss the twins on the cheek, promising not to stay away for too long. The twins watch round-eyed as he straightens up and takes Azazel's arm, both of them vanishing.

"Wow," Wanda says, and her brother echoes her. Magda rolls her eyes, shooing them back indoors.

Of course it's Charles they come to later. The children are beginning to realize that Daddy is the sort of grownup who answers questions, while Mama and Papa exercise more discretion and reserve. "Daddy?" He looks up from his papers and smiles to see Wanda and Pietro poking their little heads around the door.

"Yes, darlings?" He pushes back from the desk, turning to them as they come in and sprawl at his feet, their usual attitude when they have a question or want a story ever since they got too heavy to share his lap.

"Daddy, who's the red man?"

"Ah, yes."

"And why doesn't Mama like him?" Pietro adds.

"Well, in the year you were born, he was working with some very bad people. Personally, I think he had just lost his way. As soon as the man leading him was gone, he was all right. He helped us get home, and he brought Papa back safe and sound when Papa helped him rescue his friend. Don't mention it to Mama, though, I think she still hasn't quite forgiven him for doing it without telling her."

They both nod solemnly, because Mama always wants to know where her family is. Even students who stay out too late feel her wrath, and she worries about the staff, too. The twins are beginning to realize that with three parents they've still only got one aunt. After some debate, they've adopted all of the first students that have been in their lives since they were babies as cousins. Angel is just Angel, because they remember when she arrived. It's dim, but she hasn't always been here. "What's his name?" Wanda asks.

"He's called Azazel, and as far as we know, he's from Russia."

"Ah. So he's helping Papa find a safe place?"

"This place is safe, but Papa is looking for a private place for people who are in trouble, or look different enough that people always stare."

They both nod, already used to how stupid and rude people can be. And just about little things, like Scott's goggles! At least Scott might not always have to wear them. They've figured out that he hurt whatever part of his brain controls them, so they're just on all the time. Lately he's been working on it according to one of Cousin Hank's theories, which is that maybe another part of Scott's brain can learn the job of the hurt part, so he's been spending a lot of time in the blast room. "Will we go there if he finds a place?" Pietro asks.

"We'll at least visit, certainly. And if we do have to move for some reason, it will be easier with a place to go."

 

110\. Erik loves Genosha. It's warm and green and soothing. And there's plenty of room because the indigenous population is small and has no use for the mountains. He and Azazel are still working out how to talk to them, because nowhere in Erik's plan is making anyone go hungry or leave home when they don't want to, but it's looking good so far. Off the north coast of Madagascar, it could be more defensible, but the mountaintops are as unapproachable as he could wish. They're not very high, but they are sheer, with faces that crumble and shatter. Among the peaks are several flatter places that will be good to build on. The area lends itself to towers and walls, a high citadel, and Azazel laughs when he says so.

"Perhaps, Erik. Perhaps."

"You can't say you don't love the idea of a mutant state."

"I could, I'm a good liar."

Erik chuckles, gazing out over the green forests and blue water. The local people call themselves the Nziola, which probably means 'humans' or 'real people' or something of the sort. He can see the long, narrow boats they use for fishing skimming across the waves, incredibly tiny at this distance. "I'm just glad to find the locals peaceable and willing to share."

 

111\. It hasn't been that long, and Erik is actually shocked by how glad he is to be home. Azazel just bows and disappears, and the second he does the twins jump on Erik. Pietro talks too fast for Erik to understand at first, but he tells them all about Genosha, what it looks like, how the weather is, what he's seen of the Nziola and the mountaintops they'll be using. Charles is almost exactly the same, except for letting the twins start and the long kiss on the mouth he gives Erik, that makes both children laugh and bat at him.

"Ew, kissing!" They shriek.

"Disgusting kissing," Erik agrees, grinning from ear to ear and hugging them all. Magda comes more slowly, and Erik looks over Charles's shoulder at her, silently praying for forgiveness. She just shakes her head and comes closer, gently shooing the children away to give him a kiss of her own, more chaste than Charles's.

After the children are asleep that night, Erik shows them his maps, and what he knows about the metals under the island and how much expansion is possible without encroaching on their neighbors, whose inland hunting grounds and burial sites are carefully marked. Charles and Erik sprawl on the bed with their heads together and a galaxy of papers spread around them, piecing together the legality of becoming a very tiny independent state within Genosha. At last Magda just crawls in on her side of the bed (the one the crib was on when the twins were babies and where it will presumably be again) and curls up, snuggling the pillow and drifting off to their soft voices in either gentle argument or fervent agreement, it's hard to be sure.


	20. Chapter 20

112\. Running his school keeps Charles busy, but of course that can't save him from Magda. Hunched over the desk in his study perusing résumés, he knows she's creeping up behind him. "Another fifteen minutes, beloved."

"Is that a promise?" She murmurs, draping her arms over his shoulders and nuzzling his ear, making it suddenly very hard to think.

_Yes._

_Good._ She projects an image then, and it's really not fair, because Magda has a good imagination and so rarely projects that Charles always pays his utmost attention to her. The picture she paints of herself on her back with Erik fucking Charles into her is clear enough to hit like an sledgehammer to the frontal lobe. He whimpers desperately.

 _Fifteen minutes, I promise._ He swallows hard, and tries to sit up straight from where he's melted in his chair, wondering if he'll even make fifteen minutes. After Magda gives him a last kiss on the neck and withdraws, he switches from résumés to budget, concentrating on the grey mathematics to ignore the fact that he can feel his heartbeat in his cock.

 

113\. It's been a long time since she has done this, but it comes back readily enough. Erik's fingers are slick and gentle, and he's so careful as he works them into her, moaning softly and burying his face in her hair like he's the one being touched. She's almost silent, just breathing and leaning back against his chest, wetness pouring down so slick and so far that it helps him, but she cries out in a whisper when he finds that angle again, the one that makes her grind down, desperate for more. Erik's free hand is on her chest, gripping and squeezing and pinching and she groans, turning her head to the side to nudge demandingly at Erik until he kisses her, deep and hungry, groaning into her mouth.

_Erik?_

Magda hears it too, just as if he had spoken aloud, and hears the real sound of Erik's powers clicking the door open and then relocking it as Charles shuts it behind him, whining and leaning weakly back against it. Erik purrs, and Charles watches with wide, wide blue eyes as Erik stretches her wider and then pushes inside, slow and deep. Her eyes fall shut and her head tips back, a deep groan working its way up from her chest as Erik settles all the way inside. He shudders and clings desperately for a long moment before raising his head to meet Charles's wide blue eyes.

"Well?" His voice is breathless and smug, and Magda laughs weakly, shuddering as she squeezes Erik even harder.

"Right," Charles breathes, and scrambles out of his clothes, joining them. Erik holds her open with one hand, stretching and displaying her so blatantly that it makes her blush and whimper. Charles cups her face and kisses her over and over again, groaning as Erik squeezes his hard cock with his other hand.

"Ready?" Erik murmurs, speaking to both of them.

"Yes," Magda whispers, and Charles just nods, shaking as Erik slots them together, hand shifting to cup Charles's balls as he works his way into Magda, whining. It's so much tighter than usual, both of them filling what feels like every available space inside her. They barely move at first, so crammed and close, both of them whining in different helpless keys. Erik is whispering in her ear in Yiddish, completely gone, and Charles mewls a few endearments before giving up on speech altogether and just pouring the knowledge of how much he loves her into her mind. She shudders and gasps and comes, clinging to both of them, body tightening impossibly in wave after wave, reducing all of them to tiny, helpless sounds.

 

114\. Magda still isn't really used to being a headmaster's wife. Not even a young, silly one like Charles, but she has learned over the years. A cleaning service comes twice a week when Charles can be there and lightly scan them for ill intent, and otherwise they manage by themselves. The cooking and laundry would be too much for Magda if she didn't have the sense to conscript students and staff alike to the cause. Most of the teachers live elsewhere, but they are slowly accruing live-in faculty, mostly mutants. There's still plenty of room. The mutant birthrate is going up, but since they're not prepared to board anybody under thirteen they probably won't have to worry for some time. Which of course doesn't keep Erik from making numerous expeditions with Azazel, who does at least seem to be behaving himself. 

She has given up on keeping the twins from him because they're fascinated and he seems to have the traditional Russian fondness for children. He lets them tug his tail and tells them wild stories and delights Pietro by actually being a challenge to play tag with. She has to admit (if only to herself) that the more she gets to know him, the more he reminds her of Erik. Capable of so much bloodshed and hate, but so gentle with the twins. So while it doesn't truly please her, it doesn't surprise her that Erik and Azazel get along, and she starts feeding him, knowing that he is catlike enough to understand the truce for what it is.

This school year goes much as the others have done, and she has to admit that the routine is comforting, even when the children get in trouble. There's underage drinking and ill-advised attempts at sex and sneaking out late at night and contraband cigarettes and a thousand other things to watch out for, but Magda does her best. She even starts teaching a class of her own, because apparently in America you call good housewifery Home Economics. She makes sure boys take it too, because homosexuals and bachelors and women with no domestic talent deserve home-cooked food and properly mended clothing as much as anyone else.

She also finds herself comforting broken hearts, looking over poetry, and helping with any needed beautification while intercepting unneeded ones such as peroxiding perfectly healthy hair to a crisp. She sometimes doesn't know what the world and this country in particular is coming too, with healthy weights going out of fashion and this war in some country that was none of their affair until they sent their sons away to die. The world has had more than enough of war and bigotry, and she's glad to have Erik keeping her company in her weariness and disgust, because Charles is still his optimistic self, pointing out the massive gains that are being made and donating to various peace-oriented causes.

 

115\. However wretched the state of the world, here with Magda and Charles things are always all right. Tonight she's beneath them both, panting and tearing at Erik's back as he drives Charles into her, jarring a high, lost sound out of him with every thrust. He's muffling his moans as best he can with Charles's shoulder, writhing in the best kind of torment. There is something so perfect and right about this pain, about Magda hurting him rather than let go. He whimpers, feeling it everywhere and writhing against and into Charles, grinding roughly and biting him hard enough to bruise. Charles whimpers and sobs, babbling in a desperate whisper about how much he loves them both and then he's coming, shaking in their arms and collapsing in a boneless heap on Magda. She purrs and smiles up at them, lazy and smug and warm. He grins back.


	21. Chapter 21

116\. Magda knows she's pregnant before she goes to the doctor, but she knows that Charles and Erik will want the confirmation. And it's good to have a medical opinion, even if she is much better condition than she was at the beginning of either of her other pregnancies. She has Raven drive her in something like secrecy to her appointment one foggy morning. It seems important to be quiet, for some reason. She doesn't speak much on the way there or back, but she's happy. Erik is lurking in the kitchen when they arrive, stirring cocoa for the two sleepy little creatures sitting at the table. She stops to hug and kiss each twin before wrapping her arms around Erik's waist, looking over his shoulder at the mixture.

"A little more milk, love."

"Right as always."

_Beloved?_

Magda loves that that call means both of them. _Yes?_

 _Oh, you're… oh, I can see it now. How wonderful._ Charles's happiness curls around both their minds, heavy and warm.

117\. Erik can't even resent being the last to know, and wonders at how much he has changed, to be this happy about another man impregnating his wife. Well, Charles isn't just another man, he's _Charles_ , but it's still strange. Still, he has no words for how good it is to be with her this time. He has to make more and more trips to Genosha, but always hurries back to rejoin Charles in their constant fussing. They cosset and coddle her shamelessly, and for the first time in her life, she allows it. Erik did what he could when she was carrying Anya, but it just the two of them and no money. Now Magda can sit down and have a leisurely cry when some little thing throws her into a tailspin, and nap as much as she wants and indulge all her most impossible cravings. Out of season strawberries picked over to perfection by Wanda's deft little fingers and served with thick cream and a delicate sprinkling of sugar, bars of the kind of rich and dark chocolate that they had both dreamt of in the camps, and the heavy red meat her family had always favored when they could get it. Nothing is ever too good for Magda, and now nothing is too much trouble, either. It's laughable but they can't seem to stop. This is the only time in their precious Magdalene's life she has had sufficient leisure and excuse to allow herself to be taken care of, and all three of them are making the most of it.

Poor Pietro gets utterly exasperated with them, and Azazel turns out to be a godsend, always willing to play whatever bizarre racing and/or agility game Pietro has dreamed up. He's already years ahead in math just because he has so much time, but his reading (in any language) still needs work, so at least school isn't utter torture. Yet. Charles is already talking about instructing him at home once that inevitable day comes .

Even with his parents abruptly boring, Pietro is still happy for them, and Wanda is big-hearted and naturally maternal like her mother, and delights in assembling delicacies and fluffing pillows. Magda spends a lot of her time in bed (not too much, a Walking Woman needs to walk to keep strong enough for childbirth) with a twin tucked up on either side and reading aloud or just talking. They're old enough to understand that she'll have less time after the baby comes, and she's hoping they also realize that she'll love them just as much.

Thoughts of Anya are inevitable, and when she needs to cry about it she seeks out Erik and curls up in his lap until the wave sweeps over and past. In her present state Erik's ferocious protectiveness and inhuman power are more comforting than frightening. With her face tucked into the side of his neck and the wide span of his hand over the child in her belly, she can believe that they will be safe.

118\. It's just the one child this time, and there's something a bit odd about this one, even compared to Wanda's dreamy strangeness. There's power and fragility in this little spark of a mind, and Charles studies it for hours at a time, just resting with his head in Magda's lap. Poor Erik is stuck doing most of the real work these days, because Magda is ostensibly 'just' his dearest friend's wife. It wears on him, and Charles takes care to let him sleep late on the weekends, clinging to Magda like the only stable point in a tilting world. Charles loves to just stand beside the bed and watch them, secure and warm in the yellow sunlight. They look younger asleep, and less rawboned in general after years of being adored and well fed.

He resists the urge to pet them because it will wake Erik, and tiptoes downstairs instead, yelping as his children attack him like tiny lions pouncing on a gazelle, demanding breakfast. They know that if they're out of bed before Mama on the weekends that they can have horrifying greasy British breakfasts with Daddy. He obliges them today as always, a little worried at how desperately Pietro scarfs down his bacon. Hank is already working on making a compact, palatable, and balanced nutritional supplement, but it's no small challenge and success doesn't seem much closer. Finished with her own breakfast, Wanda cracks two more eggs for her brother, chubby little hands already competent.

119\. It's a warm evening in spring and the table is almost cleared. They eat in the kitchen, because there are enough students and teachers to fill up the dining room now, and Wanda likes it that way. The dining room is too big, everything is nice and close in the kitchen. Mama says that's the Roma in her, and that she would do well in a wagon. Wanda is proud of this, and is wrapping up half a cake for later when she feels a flash of shocked grief that makes her drop the plate and run to find Daddy. Pietro feels it too, catching the plate before it can hit and beating Wanda up the stairs like always.

"Daddy?" Wanda calls, "Daddy, what's wrong?" She doesn't like how thin and scared her voice sounds, but she has never felt Daddy like this.

"We're all right, Wanda." It's Papa, and he picks her up like he almost never does anymore and holds her tight, the way she holds her doll when she's afraid of the dark. "We're all right."

"Papa…" She's starting to get even more scared, because Papa looks so helpless.

"Dr. King is dead, Wanda."

She just stares for a long moment. She knows that dead people are gone forever, but it doesn't make sense for it to happen to Dr. King. He's so solid, and has that slow, deep voice that seems like it's rooted in the earth. He's a not a mutant, but he doesn't mind them at all and he said Wanda was pretty the last time he came by. He's not an every day person, but she's seen a him a few times and he's so strong that it doesn't make any sense for him to be dead. "…Are you sure?"

"Yes, little jewel." The pet name makes her feel a little better, even if Papa's voice is still heavy and sad. He carries her to Mama's room, where Mama is sitting very straight on the end of the bed, and hugging Daddy tightly, his face buried in her shoulder. Mama is in her nightgown because she was resting, and Pietro is on her lap, clinging to the rose-scented white cotton and looking very frightened. Papa sits down on Mama's other side and puts an arm around her. The radio news is on, because Daddy always listens after dinner, and they're still talking about it. No one else says anything, and Wanda starts to cry as more and more questions come up. Will someone shoot Daddy or Papa? They do a lot of the same things, and what about Darwin? Meeting Dr. King had meant so much to him.

 _We can protect ourselves, Wanda. It will be all right._ The thought comes from Daddy, of course, and she can feel it reaching Pietro and washing them both in love tinted tear-salty with his grief. _Sometimes terrible things happen, but we will be all right._

120\. As Magda grows rounder, the news gets worse. Erik knows his worry is chewing on the edges of Charles's mind, but he can't help it. It reminds him of Germany, and while Charles assures him over and over that the U.S. is in a vastly different place and will not act the same, there is nothing he can do about Erik's bone-deep fear. The pile of fake documentation grows, and Erik begins to obsessively plan the Academy's evacuation, worrying about the students nearly as much as his own children. He prowls the halls endlessly, day and night. Now it's evening, and he lurks just outside the door of the attic dormitory where they have stashed their younger students. This is the girl's side, and Magda is comfortably settled on the foot of Jean's bed.

"—so she told him, 'I come from a place where they hit me over the head with the skimmer,' and left it at that."

Erik leans against the wall and listens to the various misadventures of Mossycoat, smiling faintly.

121\. Magda is too big to run now, and watching the news she's starting to think she'll have to. No matter what he says, Reverend Stryker is no man of god. There is evil in the world, but God does not make it. Man does. It was men who built the miles of fences and walls and the cavernous ovens, and God who made her husbands and her children what they are. She studies his pale, stony face on the television screen, and hugs her belly.

"He won't hurt you," she says in Romanes. "No one will hurt you, smallest one. I would die first."


	22. Chapter 22

122\. Day to day at the academy things change, but so slowly it's hard to notice at first. In the last month of her pregnancy, Magda stops in the midst of folding sheets, huffing and puffing and wondering when they filled so many beds. She has welcomed every foundling who didn't arrive in her absence, but the number has crept up on her. Thinking of that bright dormitory now, she shudders. Of the rows of beds in front of her mind's eye, only about thirty percent are paid for by loving parents. An additional ten or so are paid for by grudging, obligated parents and there's a further smattering of "unmanageable" mutant children skimmed out of the foster care system, but almost half are occupied by the abandoned and the abused. Everyone from the boy who had come walking out of the woods with roadburn from being pushed out of a moving car to the girl whose father had accompanied her as far as the doorstep, handing over the forms to relinquish all claims as well as a generous check for expenses before leaving his own flesh and blood behind without a word.

Magda cannot be mother to all these children with two of her own, a third on the way and a little ghost whispering in her ear, but Charles's older students are picking up the slack. Darwin especially, who has thrown himself into it with a kind of desperation in the wake of Dr. King's death. It feels like their new era is stillborn, and she shudders again and presses her hand to the reassuring little flutter in her belly.

A gentle tug at her skirt rouses her, and she looks down to see the littlest one of all. Annabelle isn't a student, nor as far as anyone can tell, a mutant. Martine, her older sister and only surviving relative is both, and of course neither Magda nor her husbands will hear of separating them. 

"Miz Avyer?" Annabelle does her best, but will just be turning four next week.

"Yes, baby?" Magda pets the child's springy hair, admiring the two neat plaits and enjoying the texture. Martine is teaching her to work with it, since Magda has to assume other colored girls will arrive without big sisters to help them or previous instruction from their mothers.

"Peetro eated ever'thing."

Madga sighs. Pietro hasn't actually eaten everything, just everything Annabelle is allowed to prepare on her own, meaning that the entire pot of applesauce and all the bread and butter are gone. Again. Magda takes Annabelle's tiny hand and heads back to the kitchen to find something to tide her over for the rest of the morning.

 

123\. Charles examines the block carefully. "Well, doesn't smell too bad." It looks like black licorice, and shows a hint of red-brown at the edges when held up to strong light.

"I think this really is the right mixture, Charles." Hank is crouched on one of the lab benches, fingerlike toes clutching at the edge.

"It's certainly the most palatable," Charles agrees, nibbling curiously on one corner. The taste is difficult to describe, deep and complex and strange with everything Hank has managed to pack into the formula.

"Hopefully it won't all blur together into 'yucky.'"

"Well, might as well give it a try." _Pietro? We have another one for you to try._

"This one had better not be gross," Pietro mutters, blurring into view, and Charles laughs.

"I like it best so far."

"You liked the icky one," he says, glaring up at Charles with Erik's eyes.

"Still, give it a try."

Pietro takes the dark little brick of nutrition from Charles and examines it, looking very much like a fox cub or a feral kitten as he takes a cautious nibble on one corner. He pauses, ponders, and then the brick disappears.

"Good?"

"Yes. Are there any more?"

There are more, and Pietro suddenly only needs thirds at every meal and a mid-morning sandwich while Charles walks in a haze of Magda's gratitude.

 

124\. Magda's pains start in the early afternoon of September 22nd, which is quite possibly the least convenient day barring going too early. It's the first day of classes and Rosh Hashana starts at sundown. She leans against the kitchen counter and considers her options, managing to finish the bread and a few other things before she has to sit down and reach out for Charles.

_Charles?_

_Yes?_ He's been holed up in his office for the last few hours and she can feel how distracted he still is, buried in work.

_Your child has terrible timing._

_…Oh._

She's not expecting the wave of complete panic that swamps him for a moment before he sternly locks it away. _Right. Stay where you are, I'll have Erik fetch your bag._

 

125\. Erik hates hospitals, for obvious reasons. Still, he's glad for the security this one provides. He had been about as terrified as Charles is now when Anya came, earlier than expected and with no one to help her but her parents. He sits in the waiting room with a cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth and does his best to keep Charles calm. It's an uphill battle, even with Magda in telepathic contact. She's in pain, of course, but she isn't afraid.

"Charles," Erik murmurs when none of the staff is near, "let me tell you a little story about your wife and mine."

"If you like," Charles says, still deathly pale.

"A long, long time ago I was running errands for my mother." It's amazing how much easier it is to talk about Before, now.

"What had she sent you to do?"

"I don't remember anymore, but if you'd like to help me?" It's also amazing how used he is to having Charles in his head these days. Charles offers him a wan smile, and puts his fingertips to his temple and closes his eyes. Erik remembers a dreamlike flash of rich blue, and blinks. "That's right, it was to pick up a fabric order, along with some of the marketing. The point of this tale is that on my way home, I saw Magda and three boys throwing stones at her." It still makes him angry and proud of her, the feeling a visceral connection between that moment and this one. He smiles. "The first one cut the side of her mouth, but she didn't even blink. She just swiveled to dodge the second and caught the third. Plucked it out of the air and her hand never stopped moving, only changed direction to cock back and fire it like a bullet. She got the one who threw it right between the eyes, so hard I could hear the crack. A few seconds later I was there, and we got rid of them in another moment. I thought she'd cry when they were gone, since it must have hurt and she was a girl and all."

"And she didn't?" Charles asks softly, absorbed and gently tasting the vivid images in Erik's mind. It's not intrusive, just a feather-light touch.

"She wiped the blood off of her mouth, picked up her basket, and thanked me, walking along like nothing had happened. Her eyes weren't even wet."

 

126\. Tears are pouring down Magda's face, because her son is here in the world at last, and because he is perfect. She doesn't even look up when Charles and Erik come in, and they settle on opposite sides of the bed to gaze raptly into that tiny face even as Charles telepathically encourages the staff to leave them alone. As soon as the door closes behind the last nurse, they start covering Magda in kisses, taking some of the tiny alive weight of the baby and holding her as best they can when she won't feel like using the muscles in her belly to sit up for a long while yet.

"What are we naming him?" Erik murmurs, nuzzling Magda's hair.

"David," she says softly, and finally looks up, beaming at Erik as Charles fills out the birth certificate. The four of them spend a sweet little eternity just being together, and then Erik hops up and stalks out in his inscrutable alley cat way only to finally come back with a red apple and three packets of honey from the hospital kitchen. Charles laughs.

"Better late than never, I suppose."

"I knew you'd understand." He cuts it into neat thirds and they spread Magda's packet of honey over one piece and let her make a sweet start to her new year without using her hands.

 

127\. Magda comes home two days later. They want to keep her longer because David is nervous and not as fat as he should be, but god knows home will be more restful for him than bright lights and starchy white cloth. She's not at all ungrateful, David had tangled himself in the cord and it would have taken an excellent midwife to get him out alive, but a hospital is by its nature full of sickness and death and David improves on his first night home.

"I knew it," Magda coos to him as he nurses almost as hungrily as Pietro had. "You were too distracted before." The room is dim and quiet, and there's no one around. Just the two of them ensconced in the big bed, a warm little world of two.


	23. Chapter 23

128\. Charles's study isn't particularly near any of the dormitories, but he struggles to keep quiet all the same. It's almost impossible with Erik fucking him, pulling nearly all the way out only to plunge back into him again, the motion just barely rocking the heavy desk. Erik is rough and claiming and Charles is in tears with how much he loves it, biting his lip and whimpering because his forearm would work better but Erik has his hands pinned over his head and it feels so fucking good.

 _Charles. Charles, look at me._ Charles shudders and whimpers at the touch of Erik's mind like smooth, sun –warmed metal against his own. Forcing his eyes open is so hard, and he gasps and almost moans as Erik grinds into him, deep and hard and slow.

 _Please Erik please I can't--_ He gives up and sends Erik an image of those long, strong fingers crammed into his mouth, of ball gags and anything else he can think of to get the point across. Erik growls and presses one hand over Charles's mouth. It's just another way to pin him, and Charles groans, muffled and helpless as he wraps his legs around Erik's hips to hold him close.

For her own health Magda shouldn't do any of this for the next six weeks, and as a general rule won't really want to for the next three months. They've each endured that dry spell before, and to have each other now is incredible. Erik growls and speeds up, grinning fiercely because he's thinking the same thing and he loves to watch Charles's eyes roll back, loves to feel that someone so intelligent is thinking of nothing and that he's the cause.

 

129\. Pietro hates Reverend Stryker. It's because of him that Arthur isn't allowed to come over anymore, and he's the reason Papa is so angry and Mama always seems to be listening for something. She keeps telling him not to worry, but she's too honest to tell him there's nothing to worry about. Daddy lies more, but it seems to be his nature, and Pietro can't really hold it against him.

Right now he and Papa are talking about Genosha, and Pietro is listening because they still won't take him or Wanda. It makes sense that David can't go, David is too little to do anything interesting. He just eats and sleeps and needs to have his diaper changed. When he's not squalling. Daddy is pretty sure he'll be another telepath, since any time anyone gets upset, so does David.

"Really, the chieftess-- that's a better translation than headwoman, who knew? -- and I have gotten most of it worked out, Charles." He adjusts Daddy's weight where he's resting against him on the loveseat. "All that's left is the last of the planning and all the personal bits."

"Personal bits?"

"She wants to meet the tribe I represent, as well as my co-chieftain and our shared wife."

"It's so refreshing to be truthful about that."

 

130\. Zela studies these landless chieftains over her bowl of tea, comparing them. It's the first time she's seen the younger one, and he is just as beautiful and strange as his brother. Neither of them seems to have any proper skin, but she has gotten used to that in her old age with the uptick in Outlanders. Their eyes are like the ocean on different days, Erik's stormy and Charles's sunny. He smiles at her and raises his bowl in a small toast, taking a sip of the deep red brew.

"Do you approve of the blend?"

"I do. I think your niece said it was unique to Genosha?"

Zela nods. "Some people mix it with Earl Grey, but I don't like the bergamot." It's so odd to be speaking English like this, but she let Charles put the words in her head to make it easier. "I have been thinking of your offer to meet your people."

"Oh?" Erik tries to look through her, the way he always does. A chieftess is used to that, and she stares back as levelly as ever. She makes him wait an extra five-count to remind him of his place in these negotiations, and goes on.

"I think that I will."

They're both delighted at her acceptance, and vanish with the demon to tell their wife and find a good time. Nziola men don't often share wives, but it does happen. Zela is very curious to meet the woman who has managed to interest two such restless minds.

 

131\. "Yes, Erik," Magda says at last, "but what do they eat?"

It's not that she doesn't grasp the full significance of this meeting for both their peoples, or that she isn't genuinely curious about their customs and their feather cloaks and their language having a specific word for the green flash they sometimes see at sunset, but she will be cooking dinner for this woman.

Charles laughs. "I guess I should have mentioned that they have a word for the first bite of fresh-cooked fish when one is very hungry."

Magda does the best she can with what she has. Wanda and Pietro are both bursting with curiosity, asking her question after question that she can only answer with conjecture. Pietro's arm blurs as he whips a platter of egg whites, and Wanda sections oranges, careful to pick every bit of a zest from them.

 

132\. Not only do women cover their breasts in America, but it's cold this time of year. Even inside the massive house Zela is glad for the extra skirts around her neck, pinned into a loose blouse so she can move her arms and stay covered. She feels like she's in another world, a place she has only seen pictures of. When she tells Charles this he laughs and says he feels the same way about Genosha. M'Nel just looks around with big eyes, leaning on his spear. A chieftess can't go around unaccompanied, but she has made a point of bringing the least martial of anyone who could be called one of her bodyguards. She knows she won't actually need defending, and neither of them mind having to lock the spear in the same closet as Erik's gun for the duration of their visit.

The students are beautiful children and mostly well-mannered, and the shared wife turns out to be something very special indeed. Soft-spoken but very strong, and so tender with her baby. Some of the young people have been coming back with books that say horrible things about love not being good for children, but Magda has wisely ignored all of that. Her little one is in a sling around her chest, kept warm and close like he ought to be, and she pets the twins whenever they're near. It splashes over onto the students as well, and she makes sure every one of them has enough to eat. Zela has seen the number on Erik's arm, and she knows what it means even if six million is an impossible number to get her mind around. Magda loves all the more because she has lost, not less, and that is a rare and courageous thing.

M'Nel seems to be half in love already, but he has always had good taste, and looks at their hostess so much it's almost rude. Magda is very beautiful, with deep brown and gold tones to her pale skin and eyes like the ocean by starlight. Lucky for M'Nel he's young enough that Erik and Charles just seem amused, but Zela does apologize to them later, standing in the study after M'Nel has been packed off to his guest room. They just laugh and want to know if they've fed her properly. They certainly have. Zela is stuffed with fish and the white cake that is one of her favorite foreign foods, and she thanks Magda for it before letting Erik see her to her room.

 

133\. In the wake of a successful state visit, Charles and Erik both spend weeks at a time in Genosha working with the Nziola to finalize state planning. Magda hates to see them go, and they don't like it any better, always clinging to her and to David before every departure. David senses them coming and squalls and flails, but he's sweet-natured like his father and always welcomes them back with happy coos. Pietro would have held a grudge and fussed, so Magda is glad he's old enough to understand. He's more curious than anything, and bombards them with questions along with his sister, both of them fascinated by what will be their second home if Erik has his way.


	24. Chapter 24

134\. Magda has become used to having a telephone, but it has been a long process. Today class is in session, and the kitchen is quiet and full of low winter sunlight as Magda takes inventory on a steno pad. The ringing is sudden and intrusive, but comes from the next room and is muffled enough for David to sleep through it. She covers his little ears and preemptively hushes him as she goes to answer it, and he only fusses a little before drifting off again. She answers and finds the police on the other end of the line. They want a favor from her, and she would laugh if it was funny at all. But it isn't, a scared girl with newly manifested powers who needs somewhere safer than home to be. Two boys had attacked her and apparently been frozen solid for their troubles.

Of course Magda agrees to take her in.

 

135\. Erik stretches his arms over his head, pale skin gleaming in the tropical sun. He's exhausted, but their nascent settlement has a water system now, pipes shaped and threaded through the earth with his powers. He's sitting on the lip of their reservoir, a high perch that lets him look out at almost the whole island, glowing green with the wet season. Way off on the glimmering blue water he can see fishing boats.

 _Are they making a good catch, Charles?_ Remembering how much he used to resist this is so strange. Now reaching out for Charles with his mind is as natural as touch. He tips onto his back and bundles his discarded shirt under his head.

 _Better than they expected, and they're going out again after moonrise for squid._ Charles is still far below, but Erik can feel him climbing up to join him, and smiles.

 

136\. Her name is April, and she is terrified. She stands there on the doorstep, flanked by policemen like a prisoner. Her big hand-me-down coat makes her look even smaller than she is, and Magda's heart just breaks. She hugs the girl tightly, and leads her through to the kitchen for warm milk and a sandwich. It's early evening now, the students studying and her own children reluctantly going off to play because there's nothing they can do.

"Th-thank you," April says, after Magda has shown her to a guest room. It's the first time she has spoken, and Magda is glad she hasn't been shocked mute.

"You're welcome, dearheart. Is there anything else you need?" April shakes her head, but looks longingly at Magda. "Do you need to talk?" She asks, even more gently.

It turns out that she does. Magda has had this conversation many times when once would be too much. At least April's powers had saved her and every other girl in the world. The boys had been young too, but they had snatched a girl they didn't even know off the street and beaten her, so Magda has to assume the world is better off without them. The worst of the camp guards were always young. She holds April for the duration of her tale and rocks her a bit, telling her the truth, that it's not murder if you don't plan it, and that she's safe here.

 

137\. Magda wishes it would stay cold. The weather is warming toward spring and getting more and more conducive to mobs. Reverend Stryker is getting more and more airtime as he exhorts humanity to cast out the demons in its midst though they appear as little children, the destitute, and the helpless. For they are not truly these things any more than they are truly human, a vileness sent to test their resolution, their dedication to purity and truth. It makes Magda sick to listen, and David howls and howls.

More than the weather, she wishes Charles and Erik would come back. The older students will hopefully be protection enough, but she'd feel better with her men at home. April actually offers to leave, knowing that she's a lightning rod for the community's wrath. Magda tells her not to even think of it.

"They hate us for what we are already. We should stick together." She holds David close and tries to shield him from her fear.

 

138\. There's a large time difference between New York State and Genosha, and it's a lazy, golden afternoon there as cars pull up to the Academy in the darkest hour before dawn. Magda has been having a hard time sleeping, and is awake and walking the upstairs hallways with David, who can't sleep either. She looks up at the glare of headlights through the trees, and her stomach sinks like a lead weight through lake ice. It's a convoy, each car a little burst of radiance, like a false dawn as it crests the hill. There are so many of them. David squalls, and she hushes him mechanically, thinking about the best way to keep the children safe. Looking out the window, she can see men piling out of the cars. Most of them at least have sticks, and there are a few guns present, too. She reaches out to Jean, jostling her awake in a way she has become good at through her marriage to Charles.

_Mrs. Xavier?_

_Lock the dormitories and keep quiet. Tell Scott to do the same for the boys, and wake the first class._

_Yes, ma'am._ She doesn't ask any stupid questions or waste any time, and Magda is grateful the girl has such a good head on her shoulders. She locks Wanda and Pietro in, gets dressed and binds David around her chest in a sling before getting Erik's gun out of the closet and making certain that it's loaded. That done, she turns to Charles's students and sets each of them their task. Raven goes to guard April and by extension, the whole girls' dormitory. Hank and Alex join her. She hands David off to them and Raven does her best to calm his frightened wailing. Darwin and Angel accompany Magda to the door, where she asks their visitors what they want.

"We're here for the girl, mutie-lover." The spokesman seems to be self-appointed, but the others yell agreement.

"There's more than one here," she says, her hand in the pocket of her dress.

"We want April Standish, bitch!" This is someone else, further back in the crowd, but he seems to be articulating the general mood.

"She stays here until she stands trial." Magda doesn't even feel like she's inside her body anymore, looking down on things and seeing herself talking to this circle of flashlights and hostility. They start howling about seeing justice served, and advancing closer. Darwin steps in front of Magda, his skin rippling into stony plates. Angel hisses, and then the mob is rushing the door, because they have no patience for trials.

 

139\. "Erik! Erik, wake up!"

Charles is shaking him, but his voice is so stripped with terror that Erik's eyes are already open, all the laziness of napping in the sun flooding out of him like water through a sieve. "What is it?"

"I don't know, but we have to get back to Magda!" His eyes are bloodshot, blue irises shocking against the red. He hasn't strained himself this much in years. Erik is up in a second, and they each grab one of Azazel's arms, the three of them vanishing.

 

140\. Magda is standing in the doorway when they arrive, Angel spitting acid and Magda shooting, both of them aiming to barely miss because they know it will be hopeless if they actually kill anyone. Still, the two men shrieking and using fistfuls of snow to slap the burning glue off of their skin are serving to give the others pause. Magda holds the gun in both hands and plants her feet, making the next wave dance by peppering their feet. She's wondering what in the hell she's going to do when she runs out of bullets when there's the distinct cracking sound of Azazel's appearance. She has never been so glad to see him. Charles and Erik are with him, all three of them steaming with Genoshan heat against the dark hours of a New York winter morning. A bullet whines past Magda's head, and suddenly every gun in the crowd flies upward, all of them crashing together into one massive, fused ball. A few carry their owners upward until they can untangle themselves and drop out of the grip of Erik's power.

"Charles, which one of them shot?" Erik roars, and Charles just shakes his head, dead white.

"You know I can't tell you, Erik."

Before Erik can even argue, Charles is reaching out to all of them, a huge, serene wave of compulsion that says _WALK. AWAY._ sweeping over the whole group.

They obey in small, straggling clumps, and the ball of guns crunches to half size and drops, making a crater. "Damn you, Charles."

"Killing won't help anything." Charles's voice is cold, but he pulls Magda into his arms and holds her close.


	25. Chapter 25

141\. Because she has to, Magda finds some calm to settle the students back to bed. She hides her shaking hands until she's alone again and can cling to Charles and cry. She would cling to Erik as well, but he's prowling the building, far too furious and afraid to settle for a moment.

"Hey, Magda?" She looks up at Raven's voice. "David's been missing you."

It's a vast understatement. David is a wreck, exhausted from crying, and clings to her weakly, snuffling and whimpering. Magda hushes him and soothes him.

"It's like mirrors," Charles says after a moment, cradling them both. "His brainwaves echo yours, and yours echo his."

"I'm not surprised," she says softly, stroking the mouse-colored fuzz on David's head. She leans on Charles and feels herself pulled under by the deep drowsiness of having used strength she doesn't have.

 

142\. "Erik." He looks up, and suddenly remembers that he's cold, dressed for Genosha in knee-deep snow. Charles has of course been sensible and put on real boots and a coat. He's even brought a second one for Erik, like that's all that they have to worry about. He hates Charles for his naivete, sharp and burning. He knows Charles can feel it, watches him recoil. "Erik, I…"

"You're going to tell me that we can stay here. You're going to say that it's all right. You're going to act like they didn't almost shoot your fucking wife in the head." He's shaking, fighting the urge to grab Charles by the lapels and do something violent.

"Erik, we can't run from every threat, it would be—"

"It would be what, letting them win? This isn't a game, Charles!" He locks eyes with him and projects Anya's last shrieks, the memory eternally raw, like ground glass in the chambers of his heart.

 _Erik, don't--_ The gunshot that killed Edie Lensherr follows, still echoing for her son. Charles claps his hands to his ears as if that will help, dropping the coat to the snow and reeling.

 _They took my mother. They took my father, they took my girl, my little Anya, and every time they made me watch. I am not watching this, Charles!_ Charles just whimpers, and Erik drops to his knees, overcome with sudden and scalding remorse. "Charles, Charles, my sweet little fool, how can you endure me?"

_Because I love you. Even when you're cruel._

That's all it takes and Erik is weeping again, like he hasn't since David's birth.

 

143\. Pietro can't help but worry, because it's four o'clock in the morning and all three of their parents are awake. He's glad to see Daddy and Papa, but Papa hugs them too tight and won't let go for what feels like forever. It seems as though he and Wanda have slept through something important. Wanda's eyes are big and worried as she rests her head on Papa's other shoulder, thinking the same thing.

 

144\. Magda doesn't mind leaving the Academy as much as she really should, considering her responsibility to the place. But she can't pretend it isn't in her blood to travel. The children's too, of course. They pack very neatly and travel light for children their age and raised in a house, and she's proud of them. They've run some tests with the teleportation and David actually takes it quite well. The first time he had reappeared laughing in Azazel's arms as if the two of them shared a secret, and this time he claps chubby hands as they step out of nothing into the Genoshan heat.

The first thing she notices is the soft air, then the light, and then comes the overwhelming scent of flowers. This island of theirs is an emerald in the sapphire sea, and when she smiles it feels like the land smiled first.

"How beautiful," is all she says, and lets Erik lead her to where she will be setting up housekeeping.

 

145\. Lele is even more curious than everyone else to meet their new neighbors. Not only is she curious by nature, but newly married to two men she knows there is advice Magda will be able to give her that her own mother cannot. She puts on her best skirt and her older sister's best breastband, left over from the last baby, since outlander women cover themselves all the time, and not just for protection while nursing. Everyone is clean and they've braided and oiled their hair nicely, so all that's left is to make the long walk up to the mountains. It's a rough little road that's more like a game trail, but the outlanders have been working on it and all of them have taken rougher trails. It's a beautiful day, and they make their way up laughing and singing, gifts balanced on their heads or carried on their hips.

All of them have heard about the magic the outlanders can do, and Lele has seen some of it, so she doesn't scream the way Mena does when the red demon bursts into view. It's alarming the first few times, but he's working for their new neighbor and has offered violence or even discourtesy to no one. He bows, and greets them politely in the Nziola tongue. He also offers them a ride up, but they're pretty close now, and afraid of losing their gifts and of the unknown. They graciously decline and continue on up to this strange settlement.

Oale has been away to college and come back, and is more used to how outlanders arrange things, but these dwellings are even strange to her, like caves with metal reinforcing the stone. They look cool and airy, many with impossible windows and ventilation slits. The whole mountaintop is high and airy, and the breeze is a relief after the muggy forest. The head triad live in the oldest cave, which has hardy flowering vines trained over it. The flowers are small and pink and fragrant all out of proportion with their size, and there's a little boy sweeping the smooth earth yard. He moves so quickly that he blurs and all they can tell is that he's gold with white hair until he stops and looks up at them with eyes like a stormy sea.

"Good afternoon, ladies." His Nziola is good, and he's such a beautiful child that all of them are charmed, even Mezela, who doesn't like children. He tucks his broom under his arm and leads them to the door, where his mother is sitting and reading a big sheaf of papers, his sister washing dishes. He speaks to her in some language Lele doesn't know, which means it can't be German because her first husband is studying it and has taught her some.

Magda's Nziola isn't as good as her children's, but smiles are universal and soon Lele is cooing at the sweet pink baby who is nearly walking, while Mezela helps finish the dishes and Zena carefully fingers the hem of Magda's dress, which is a lovely soft yellow with pink roses on it. They must beautify her in Nziola style, but there will be time for that later.

 

146\. Erik is glad to find Magda getting along with the locals, even if he does prefer to greet his wife without an audience. The twins batten onto his legs and David reaches for him, because he's been away all day in the jungle. He has no choice but to smile and hold them close, even with all these village girls watching. The little dark one sitting beside Magda smiles sweetly, and tells him in halting German that his family is lovely.

 

147\. Setting up a sovereign nation is difficult, but not impossible, particularly with Nziolan permission to settle on Genosha. Azazel flickers them back and forth from their home to the Academy, where things are running much more smoothly than one would expect after the mob. Some of is probably Logan, the man from the bar who had told them to go fuck themselves only to come limping up the driveway five nights after the mob had been and gone and elect himself as groundskeeper and head of security. Charles had said it was all right, and Logan has stayed.

On this visit home he's out walking the grounds with poor little April, whose trial is coming right up. The smoke from his cigar streams out behind them in the chill air, and he's growling, "You're innocent. The truth don't always matter to the judge, but it sure as shit does to me."

 

148\. All of them have to testify, of course, and Magda can see the jury disbelieving her, with her by now idiomatic accent and brown skin. Legally a dark-skinned white woman, speaking in the chorused voices of little Magda in Romanes and Mrs. Charles Xavier's Oxford English and the Lensherr woman's German-tinted Ukrainian, there is no way for this jury of anything but her peers to understand her. Erik does only a little better, too foreign and too cold. It's Charles who saves them, warm, limpid blue eyes and gentle attentiveness to his own children forcing them to understand. He is a not a man who lies, and he speaks well about how frightened and tense April has been, and how much she regrets killing her attackers.

"So you're saying that if the girl had had better control of her powers, these young men would be alive today?"

"Undoubtedly. Unfortunately, Miss Standish had no training in her powers and no idea of their extent. She became frightened for her life and defended herself with strength she didn't know she had, something which happens every day around the world."

They deliberate for hours, of course. It's so long that Magda is sure they've lost, holding April tightly as they wait for the verdict. When it comes in as 'not guilty,' she can't believe her ears.


	26. Chapter 26

149\. The next three years are busy ones. Establishing the Genoshan Mutant Free State, raising and schooling the children, and learning all about their new neighbors even as they accept wave after wave of troubled mutant refugees. April comes to join them, no longer feeling safe in America, but most of the first class stays to help run the school, which is flourishing now, having survived one attack only to come back stronger. Even Erik has to admit that that least as many people were in the mob that night have called them up to offer support, donated food or clothing, and offered them the names of good lawyers. Three years on they still dream about it, though. About how things might have gone so differently.

Their days are too busy for that sort of thought. Their city grows and requires a police force, and expansions of the plumbing. Still, as things even out a bit, Magda finds herself wanting another baby. David is almost four, and very old for his age and self-contained. The twins are wild eight-year-olds, running all over the mountain and up and down the jungle paths with Nziolan friends and others from around the world.

And then Lele brings her brand new little girl up the mountain, and Magda coos over the child so much even Lele laughs at her. The baby is beautiful, though, darkening from new pink down to her mother's ebony blackness. As with so many things, babies always seem to come in clusters, so it's only a few days later when one of the women Magda doesn't know comes running to her in a panic, a bundled up baby in her arms. She's speaking Nziola, of course, reverting to her first language in a crisis even if she has others, and so fast that Magda has to ask her to slow down. The baby smells awful, and Magda's heart drops into her churning stomach even before she folds back the blanket to find the baby gelid and green-black, apparently in the very last stages of gangrene. She's about to say that it's already dead when it opens yellow eyes and starts to bawl, sounding hungry and lost.

"The wisewoman said it was dead, and then that she didn't know what to do if it wasn't. Can you help us?"

150\. Charles thanks Azazel for once again sparing him a flight, and then follows his wife's distress. Magda is bathing the rotted corpse of an infant, but she thinks it's alive. For a horrible moment he's afraid she has finally seen one horrible thing too many and gone mad, and then the corpse cries.

"My god!"

"Charles, I'm so glad you're here! I think it's a mutant, because the more of the stuff I wash away, the more there is. Help me."

It's a disgusting task, but he does help her, and by the time Erik comes trudging back from a new building site further north, he joins in. By now they've dumped countless tubs of foul, green-black water, but the baby's new skin is starting to show pale green. They can tell that it's male now. The baby's aunt is still pacing outside, and pokes her head in. "Does it look any better?"

"It's a boy, and he does," Magda calls, and then yelps Erik's full name to see him floating a straight razor over that soft green skin.

"Shhh," he says, "Don't distract me." The blade floats over every part of the child without cutting him once, scraping off a final layer of green slime and revealing the bright pink skin of an infant albino.

"Well," Charles says, "Two mutations for the price of one."

151\. As with many cultures, albinisim is bad luck amongst the Nziola. Zela declares herself ashamed of the girl to be listening to such stupid superstitions, as well as indebted to them for fostering the baby while she tries to talk sense into his mother.

They have discovered that little Tuesday (as they're calling him on the same principle of Robinson Crusoe's Friday) exudes the pungent, bacteria-dense discharge when he is upset, and that the stuff functions as a probiotic disinfectant as well as a defense mechanism akin to a skunk's spray. That doesn't make it any more pleasant to deal with, and they turn to Hank for disposable baby clothes made of a treated local fiber that just rots away when Tuesday gets upset as opposed to being hopelessly stained and reeking.

152\. As much trouble as Tuesday is, Magda still holds back tears when his young mother comes to claim him. She wrinkles her nose at the scent that hangs around him, then laughs and cries as well, and thanks Magda for mothering her son when she could not. After she's gone, Magda lets herself have her cry, and Charles and Erik hold her.

153\. Of course Magda wants another child. Erik knows her well, and is happy enough to oblige her. Both of them feel the nakedness of large clans stripped away, even here in Genosha. They need more of their own blood to replace what Hitler spilled, and Charles seems to feel it too, leaving the two of them alone as they all quietly stop using condoms. Magda doesn't truly care which of them it is, only that one of them gives her a child.

154\. It's a late morning, a rare day off for the Prime Minister and his assistant's wife. The twins are long up, and Erik can hear them shouting outside as he rolls onto Magda and nuzzles her neck to wake her.

"Beloved one?" He murmurs, speaking her home dialect after all these years.

She answers in kind, kissing him. "For you, I'm awake." They kiss a while longer before she gently pushes him away to vanish into the bathroom for a few minutes, emerging with her bladder emptied and her face washed. Erik just grins and reaches for her, feeling as lazy as any cat in the sunbeam that pours over him. Magda smiles back, straddling him and rocking slowly, the two of them just rubbing along each other as Magda gets slicker and slicker, purring as Erik cups her breasts in his hands, nuzzling and sucking hungrily.

"So beautiful," Erik murmurs, and can't stop himself from saying it over and over as he covers Magda with kisses. She sinks down onto him at last with that low, happy noise he will never get enough of, and for an irrational moment he misses Charles as he thrusts into her and then forgets everything.

155\. Charles is the first one to know this time. Just as he did with the twins, he can feel the subtle changes in Magda's brain chemistry, so dear and well-known to him after nearly a decade. He waits until the three of them are in bed together, feeling like an unopened present even though it's Magda who has a gift on the inside.

"What is it, love?" Erik asks, cuddling up on one side as Magda does on the other.

Charles laughs, and hugs them both. "Success. You're pregnant, Magda."

"So kind of you to tell me," she teases, and they lie awake half the night, petting Magda and discussing names.

156\. Rounding out with her fifth baby, Magda's thoughts turn to her first one again. The hardest thing about it may be having nothing to visit. Anya is gone up in greasy smoke like so many others, heat too intense even for her pearly little teeth to have survived. Even the house is gone, and either way Magda would never want to go back there. But she wants something of her sweet little Anya, first and dearest for so long. She will never forget her first child, and she doesn't want to. The memories hurt but the emptiness would be worse. She regularly thanks God that she and Erik have found each other again and have another chance, because he remembers too. Even Charles does a little, through them. She hugs her belly and indulges in a little weeping today, but finally has to get up and dress properly to go see the wisewoman. There are doctors on Genosha, but for figuring out how to meet an expectant mother's dietary needs on the island there is no one like a Nziola wisewoman, and this one is also very good at taking care of a woman's spirit. She proves it today by sitting down with Magda and gently asking her why she has been crying.

Magda hasn't told anyone here about Anya, but the whole story pours out like a bellyful of poison, and Alet just listens with one scrawny arm around Magda, eyes full of tears as she rocks them both a little and makes the gentle whooshing noises the Nziola make when they feel sorry for someone. When Magda is really done crying and not just holding it back to be polite, Alet helps her wash her face and fix her hair again, and then asks if she might be interested in a Nziola memorial of the type reserved for the lost dead, those of whom nothing physical is left.

157\. The idea appeals to Erik as much as anything that forces him to feel feelings about his dead baby girl can. The Nziola method of honoring the dead when there is no body to bury is to make an effigy of wet clay full of flower seeds, and find a little niche for it somewhere the dead person would have liked. Near their Genoshan home is a little muddy clearing that Anya would have loved to ruin her dresses in. It's a clement patch where things grow well, and they put the little doll where it can enjoy the sun and see the ocean. The idea is for it to crumble away like a real body would, and to then become a patch of flowers for loved ones to care for.

158\. Wanda is barely old enough to understand, and holds Pietro's hand tightly, her other hand wrapped around the base of a white candle. It's just her, Pietro, Mama, Daddy, Papa, and David, who isn't old enough to understand but can't sleep when all of them are feeling this strange solemnity. Daddy holds David, and Mama and Papa hold candles. They put the little doll in a nice niche in some rocks, and pray for a while in different languages before setting the candles in the earth beside the figure and motioning for Wanda and Pietro to do the same. They each plant their candle, and all of them stand quietly in the flickering light while Daddy says a prayer of his own. David stares at the little doll and doesn't make a sound.


	27. Chapter 27

159\. Magda has this baby at home, with Alet and of all people, Dr. Banner helping her. The doctor's sad eyes have been finally explained by news reports of the Hulk, and he has found solace here. He's still so young she can't get over it, but has the scalpels and the skill if things go terribly wrong. They do not, though. Magda's body is strong, and she has done this before, with plenty of rest and good food in between.

When she first sees the green crown of the baby's head, Magda wonders if she's having something like little Tuesday after all. And then her daughter slides out, perfectly formed and bawling, wisps of baby hair as green as emeralds. She's beautiful, and Magda holds her as Alet cleans her up and shoos Dr. Banner out, having never wanted a man there in the first place. Cleaning done and baby washed and seen to, Alet lets Charles and Erik in. They come and sit on each side of her, beaming.

"Green hair, eh?" Erik says at last, kissing Magda and gazing down at their new arrival.

"A very groovy mutation," she says softly, and Charles laughs.

160\. They introduce Lorna to her big sister, effigy mostly crumbled already. The baby laughs, and reaches for one perfumed pink blossom where the sun shines through it like a jewel.

161\. It amazes Charles, how fast time can fly. It seems like no time at all before Lorna is ten years old, the Genoshan Free State (Mutant having been dropped after a few arguments with Magda) growing up alongside her. Today is a particularly special day. Magda's birthday was two days ago, and everyone is home for the celebration, the three older children now attending the Academy with whole new generations of mutantkind. It has been a happy and lazy few days, everyone's work set aside to eat well and fuss over their beloved Magda, but her birthday comes every year while today is the first time Erik has let anyone do an interview that could be called even remotely informal.

Now he's grumbling as the three of them dress, trying not to tangle his fingers in his tie. "This is ridiculous," he mutters when it's finally done, and Magda just laughs at him.

"You know you love it, you peacock." She kisses his cheek and pulls his tie crooked for the pleasure of straightening it, and Erik sighs. He supposes he had enjoyed this once upon a time. It had been so satisfying, like clothing himself in the pelts of slain beasts, like taking scalps. The scrawny little Untermensch grown into something entirely other, something that moved through all the right circles like a shark in the silence of the sea. He had taken such joy in paying for sharply-tailored suits with Nazi gold, the next best thing to a necklace of teeth. Now it's just one more damned thing, but it's good to have Magda close to him before they have to maintain their usual public distance.

"I know I love you, Magdelena."

"And I you," she says, kissing him softly and then breaking away so she can lead him out to where Charles has been chattering gaily away with the reporter for the past ten minutes or so, waiting for his wife to go get his good friend. Erik sighs at the charade, and then turns his attention to studying what he can't help but think of as their interrogator. He's a quiet looking man with glasses, and Erik suppresses a shudder. He has been picked apart by too many quiet men in his time.

"There you are," Charles says, and reaches out to Erik without so much as changing expression. _He's not here to harm us, Erik. He's a good man._

 _Easy for you to say_ , Erik answers, but takes his place at the little table in their yard. The yard is bare dirt like the Nziola ones in the lowlands, edged with flowers, and the table has an umbrella over it to keep off the sun when western schedules force them to talk business in the hottest part of the day.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Lensherr. Ben Urich, Daily Bugle." Erik shakes his hand, and tries not to eye him too suspiciously.

162\. When the interview is done at last, Erik has volunteered much more information than he would have thought, and is watching Mr. Urich with narrowed eyes, still unsure how this thing has been accomplished. The reporter just smiles back at him and thanks him for his time.

"Do you mind if I talk to your children, Professor?" He asks Charles, and Erik wishes he could be sure he isn't bristling and that Urich doesn't know _exactly_ what the helpless and automatic reaction is.

"Not at all, I'll call them for you." Passing Erik's mind on the way to the children, Charles almost strokes along it, trailing sympathy and love over his awareness.

Lorna responds first, skimming over the ground in fits and starts. She can't levitate properly yet, but she's much closer than Erik was at her age, thanks to having a good tutor in the use of her magnetic powers. To Urich's credit, he doesn't bat an eye at her vivid green hair, and asks her a bit about herself and her siblings as they come to join her, David rubbing his eyes from one of the naps he takes every day, needing greater than average amounts of REM sleep to fully process all the information he takes on as a combined telepath and empath. He explains that to Urich, and Erik has to admit to himself that he is impressed at how good Urich is at not being upsetting, a vital skill in dealing with David. The twins come last, the furthest away. Pietro can carry any of his siblings if it's an emergency, but otherwise Wanda always makes him walk with her to remind him to slow down a little. He's rude at first, as he is all too often, but Magda and Wanda both hiss at him in the same moment and make him behave. Erik chuckles, smiling at his son's impatient glare.

They linger a long time around the table, the heat of noon giving away to a softer, more humid heat later in the day. The Nziola say that their neighbors have given them many gifts, but that the best is probably cheap ice, mutant powers cutting out vast amounts of overhead. Pietro mixes juices and flower nectars according to a favorite local recipe, and everyone savors the floral-honey-peach taste of the resulting concoction as they move onto what Urich calls 'fluff' with disarming honesty. Lorna introduces Urich to her pet lizards and Pietro lets him try a tiny corner of one of his supplement bars while Wanda does her best to explain how her probability powers work and David tells him what color his emotions are. Clouds gather below the peak to pour soft, warm rain onto the jungle below.

163\. Magda saves Urich's column when it's written and published. She frames it alongside the single photograph they could get Erik to put up with, Raven's little boy holding the camera, the spade of his tail just inside the edge of the shot. In the picture Charles stands with one arm around Magda and the other around Erik. Lorna leans into her mother's side and Wanda stands beside Charles, her twin crouched in the front and slightly blurred the way he always is. David is beside him, hand on Pietro's back helping to keep him as still as he is. It's a very honest picture, and Magda keeps it for the rest of her life.


End file.
